Joseph's Picks Of The Week 1/27/12 - Charles "Packy" Axton and MISSISSIPPI BLUES 1927-1941

With a subject as wide as music, it should come as no great surprise that a ridiculous number of indispensible volumes are currently stuffing library shelves and cluttering up the coffee tables of connoisseurs all over this tirelessly spinning globe. But on top of that mountainous stack of worthy texts sits a few select titles that simply inhabit a class all by themselves; Robert Palmer’s DEEP BLUES, Nick Tosches’ UNSUNG HEROES OF ROCK ‘N’ ROLL, A. B. Spellman’s FOUR LIVES IN THE BEBOP BUSINESS, Peter Guralnick’s FEEL LIKE GOING HOME and SWEET SOUL MUSIC, Valerie Wilmer’s AS SERIOUS AS YOUR LIFE, Greil Marcus’ INVISIBLE REPUBLIC (aka THE OLD WEIRD AMERICA)and Clinton Heylin’s FROM THE VELVETS TO THE VOIDOIDS are amongst the books in this stratum all possessing the three essential ingredients, namely depth of knowledge, controlled passion for the subject and an abundance of prose skill, that ultimately combine to form a very rare and valuable thing. Another entry in this singular zone is IT CAME FROM MEMPHIS by Robert Gordon, a sort of celebratory alternate musical history of the city that covers everything from blues survivor Furry Lewis to lunatic DJ Dewey Phillips to southern hipster/musician extraordinaire Jim Dickinson to horribly underrated post-bop pianist Phineas Newborn to u-ground rock scene mainstays Alex Chilton and Tav Falco. Charles “Packy” Axton also gets essential documentation in the book, and in fact the pages of MEMPHIS served as my introduction to this true outsider legend. But it’s a cinch that millions have been touched by the guy’s sphere of influence even if the majority of those listeners haven’t a clue to the significance of his name. For starters, tenor saxophonist Axton’s mother Estelle and Uncle Jim Stewart founded Stax records, one of the cornerstones upon which the foundation of 20th Century music is based. And anybody that’s grooved to the delirious instrumental nutriment of “Last Night” by The Mar-Keys has heard the quality of his horn. A notoriously hard drinker (dead in ’74 from cirrhosis of the liver) with a difficult temperament to match, a big part of his posthumous reputation is how he relegated himself to the margins of a musical legacy, but an equally interesting aspect of his story is how he played a role in the demolition of the barrier of segregation through everyday associations across the color line and did so with nary a trace of saintliness or righteousness. People like Charles Axton are often retroactively assessed with the descriptor “colorblind”, but that sort of rubs me the wrong way. I can’t help but feel it proposes many integrationist individuals (both well known and marginal) as being somehow unable to really identify cultural and racial differences in their fellow man. In the case of Packy Axton however it’s pretty obvious that the dude was simply out searching for the life-affirming variety (also known as kicks) that is so often desired by young, open-minded, artistically inclined individuals; he wasn’t trying to change the world or make a statement, he was simply grabbing life by the horns. But Axton did actually end up making a statement (of sorts), and it’s just been issued by the fine folks at the Light in the Attic label as LATE LATE PARTY 1965-67. Its 17-songs add up to a huge sum that serves as essential augmentation for any right thinking individual’s collection of ringers form the vaults of Stax and Hi. Featuring tunes released under the names Martinis, L.H. & the Memphis Sounds, The Pac-Keys, Stacey Lane, and The Packers, with this last a rapidly assembled band whose “Hole in the Wall” was Axton’s second brief collusion with chart success, reaching #5 R&B (and #43 Pop) in 1965. As his second most popular song, “Hole in the Wall” sheds important light on Packy’s performative range; recorded in Los Angeles (where Axton had bailed after tiring of the difficulties with Uncle Jim) with Steve Cropper, Al Jackson and Booker T. hisself (all out touring with the Stax Revue), the song toes a suave line between the M.G.’s and the sort of non-crap pop-jazz proffered during this incredibly fertile period by guys like Ramsey “The In Crowd” Lewis. And I’m happy to report that “Hole in the Wall” sticks out not a bit qualitatively on LATE LATE PARTY, the album cohering into a very satisfying package. The Martinis and The Pac-Keys (featuring members of the superb Bar-Kays of “Soul Finger” fame) take up over half of the LPs tracks and to fine effect, with the former group leaning somewhat toward M.G.’s style riff as groove as eternal love and the latter hitting upon the horn based gorgeousness that later defined the post-Axton Mar-Key horns (who backed up Otis dontcha know). But there are all sorts of twists in store; “Hung Over”, a tight little frat-party intsro by The Martinis holds some of the goofus spirit of fellow Memphis weirdo Travis Wammack, L.H. and the Memphis Sounds shoot for a Motown-esque vocal group dynamic and score with ease, The left-field kazoo solo on The Pac-Keys’ “Hip Pocket” just oozes a post-4AM in the studio screw it let’s do it verve, and singer Stacy Lane rumbles like Edwin Starr on the locomotive “No Ending”. LATE LATE PARTY 1965-67 is simply a no-brainer acquisition for serious soul collectors but it’ll more than spike the juice of mere dabblers. In fact, it might just turn those dabblers into flat-out aficionados. What a nice possibility.

It’s fitting that the Mississippi blues, a form largely born from severity and often performed as a means of emotional survival in the harsh Jim Crow environment, should be one of this county’s most lasting cultural artifacts. And many folks automatically equate the blues of Mississippi with the region of the Delta, which is easy to do since the dominant innovators from the state (Charlie Patton, Son House, Skip James, Robert Johnson) all hailed from that region, but this associative jump doesn’t accurately encompass the sheer bounty of what transpired within those borders in the early portion of the 20th century. For a strong taste of the state’s diversity of style please investigate Yazoo Records’ 1967 compilation MISSISSIPPI BLUES 1927-1941, a truly mind-blowing document that’s just been given a fine repress on 180 gram vinyl. Yes, each of the abovementioned heavyweights is included here, with the mesmerizing and iconoclastic styles of the four being simultaneously buffered and accentuated by a sweet slew of lesser known but crucial names. The proceedings start strong and suitably uncharacteristically with “Gang of Brown Skin Women” by Harvey Hull and Long Cleve Reed (aka the Down Home Boys), playing a tune from ’27 that’s described in Bradley Sweet’s liner notes (through the source of Skip James) as spanning as far back as the early 1800s, though the song is boldly outfitted with a then up to date (if still decidedly rural) veneer replete with scat-singing gestures and a general good-time post Vaudeville atmosphere that feels more in line with the general M.O. of Memphis. The song is an obvious and delicious bit of lively fantasizing that would’ve fit right into the songster repertoire of Cannon’s Jug Stompers, the Memphis Jug Band, or even fellow homeboys the Mississippi Sheiks. In other words, great stuff for parties and barbeques. Fiddle-man Henry “Son” Sims’ is best known today for being a key accompanist for Charlie Patton (and later for pre-Chicago Muddy Waters), but on the buoyant if keening “Be True Be True Blues” it’s Patton backing up Sims to beautiful result. Over the years I’ve been unable to shake the song’s unschooled street-corner vibe from reminding me of unpolished pre-blues glory as peddled by such legends as Henry “Ragtime Texas” Thomas. You however might feel differently.  It’s with “I’m Leavin’ Town” by William Harris that things start to take a turn for the familiar. With guitar assistance by Joe Robinson this masterful duet is at once among the greatest and most slept on of all prewar blues cuts, a loose, raw, shit-talking beast of a tune that’s justifies the price of MISSISSIPPI BLUES all by itself. That Harris is essentially a historical cipher has undoubtedly kept his legacy loitering out in the margins of blues history, and that’s a damn drag. He doesn’t have enough tracks to fill out a full release under his own name (only seven of his sides remain with us), and while his material is suitably tough it does lack the doom-laden starkness that’s turned those lingering four names into such mythic legends. One great reason for reissuing an LP with tracks that have subsequently been filtered onto hundreds of releases (at least) since this inaugural compiling way back in ’67 is how it gives Harris a fresh chance to be heard by as many people as possible through simple association with far more prominent artists like House and Johnson. That Harris is followed by two ass-flaying tracks by Skip James is just gravy. With his strained and stressed and at times harshly feminine vocal delivery weaving through the threatening aura of his playing style, James has long been one of the most fascinating and stylistically extreme artists in the vast sphere of the blues. Once the ear has adjusted to his unique delivery and emotional heft his work can become absolutely entrancing; it’s the epitome of Robert Palmer’s concept of “deep blues”, and it could easily be used as the dictionary antonym of “easy listening”. The music of Skip James requires attention and commitment, but it also offers a huge reward. Even in a genre that always seems to flirt with the monochromatic (which is frankly part of the music’s appeal), nothing else sounds like him. What a rare and wonderful thing. The three tracks included here by Delta behemoth Charlie Patton are characteristically varied, for he was a consummate performer slash entertainer and simply one of the most important names in all of American Music. The Delta blues basically starts with him. Just think of it this way; without him there would’ve been no Howlin’ Wolf, and without that raspy giant there’d be no Rolling Stones or Beefheart, and that’s just for starters. A truly scary thought. Patton’s “Hang it on the Wall” ( a redo of his earlier “Shake it and Break it”)  is a pure throw-down of party-time tomfoolery that surely raised many a house into pure rocking frenzies all over the region, his “Mean Black Moan” features the high-pitched bow of “Son” Sims along with bucket loads of surface noise (just think of it as ambiance, okay?) and the man working through some typically intense love-ache, but it’s the perfect balance of mood and dynamics resonating throughout “Pea Vine Blues” that really cooks up the gusto in my crib. Though her discography is scant (a mere six sides) Geeshie Wiley nonetheless ranks as one of the greatest female singers/players in the entirety of the rural blues. Beyond her actual recordings little is known of her beyond rumor; she might’ve came from the city of Natchez, maybe she was involved with Papa Joe McCoy, perhaps she married Casey Bill Weldon, etc. What’s indisputable is the quality of her work. On “Eagles on a Half” Wiley combines crisp, percussive guitar with a relaxed vocal style that gains emotional resonance through her ease of delivery. To elaborate, she eschews the often piercing tones of many early urban blues singers, with this lack of urbanity ironically making her sound far more modern. If almost nothing is known of Wiley than Mattie Delaney is a complete blank. Obviously influenced by Charlie Patton, “Tallahatchie River Blues” shows her wielding a strong, smooth guitar hand and a voice that while more assertive than Wiley’s (as befitting her range) still integrates quite well with her instrumental ability. 12-string guitarist John Byrd comes from the songster tradition and unsurprisingly for that lifestyle he moved around the country quite a bit. The majority of his work was documented in Kentucky, and that’s where this album’s “Billy Goat Blues” was recorded. This marks him (along with William Harris who moved to Chicago in the 30s) as one of the first Mississippi blues transplants. That his style differs so stridently from the Delta mold is an appealing complication. Bobby Grant’s “Nappy Head Blues” from ’27 is so reminiscent of Son House that its existence as a supposed case of parallel development is somewhat confounding (House apparently had no idea who Grant was). As a brilliant bit of undiluted Delta science, it makes total sense to follow it in the playing order with House his own regal self, heard here circa 1941 with “Delta Blues”. The jump in time is illustrative. This is the only track on the record to feature harmonica (superbly rendered by Leroy Williams) and shows the big jump the Delta style had made before taking another grand leap into the city of Chicago in the tail end of the decade. At the point of “Delta Blues”’ recording Muddy Waters was still on Stovall’s Plantation, and to play these tracks by Grant and House immediately before Muddy’s “Walkin’ Blues” from 1950 (a standard first recorded by House) is to get hipped quick to one deep stream of country to city developments. But another marker of rural to urban transmogrification is represented through the figure of Robert Johnson. The dark mythic aura that persists in surrounding this most famous of Delta artists continues to somewhat obscure the fact that he was simply an amazing one-man synthesizer of the form. Initially a protégé of House, he was also undoubtedly influenced by the more citified guitar playing of Lonnie Johnson for just one example, and this blend of styles can be clearly heard on this LP’s closer “Dead Shrimp Blues”. If Johnson was vital in the alchemy of down home and uptown modes (keep in mind that John Hammond wanted him for his first “From Spirituals to Swing” concert in December of ’38 [where he would’ve shared the stage with amongst others The Count Basie Orchestra] but unfortunately he was already cold in the ground), he wisely knew better than to soften the dark swagger of the Delta; the “shrimp” of this tune refers not to tasty crustaceans but to what Bradley Sweet describes as harlots, a term of slang already archaic at the time of Johnson’s recording. That makes the line “woke up this morning/all my shrimps was dead and gone” rather menacing to say the least, and it’s a particularly apropos way to end the album. MISSISSIPPI BLUES 1927-1941 isn’t the last word on its subject (check out Yazoo’s MISSISSIPPI BLUES MASTERS 1927-1935 for a more extensive look and with almost no overlap), but for many ears (like mine) it essentially was the first word. It’s great to have it back in the racks.



Joseph's Picks Of The Week 1/20/12 - The OBN IIIs and Shannon and the Clams

It’s a natural circumstance that naysayers and grouches of all stripes will soapbox the end of quality sounds, croaking to any ears that’ll listen over the perceived diminishing returns of the contemporary musical landscape. It’s not a bit hard to find these joyless souls, for they often hold up barstools and lean on coffee counters looking to impart their faulty wisdom in the hopes of mobilizing a sad-sack army, and they might even be that wagging tongue nobody wants to run into at the worksite water-cooler. Indeed, these sour sorts can also be friends and family; if this is the case an early intervention can steer the individual back onto the true path, but please understand that knowing the symptoms is a MUST. For instance, if they bark that jazz has lost its gusto, play them some Peter Evans or Darius Jones and fast. And if they complain that nobody spits off sparks like the old-time musicians of yore, introduce them to Frank Fairfield or Charlie Parr immediately. If the accusation is a more complex one, like the absence of truly unique and non-trad solo players-writers-voices, then just sit them down in a room with Bill Callahan or Joanna Newsom and watch the scales fall from their eyes. One of the most common bits of crotchety carping is a short bit of business; specifically the “punk is dead” screed. People have been saying this for nearly as long as the form has been around, but it’s obviously never been accurate. The complicating factor is that punk’s qualitative window of opportunity is so often very finite. People faultily assume that when a beloved band (or a bunch of them) hits the skids with inferior recordings it foretells the end of the genre as a whole. No, punk is largely the game of pissed-off, impolite kids banding together in defiance of the standards of old folks everywhere; it’s all explained with bold, succinct strokes in the title of The Dead Boys’ classic YOUNG LOUD AND SNOTTY. If you happen to discover someone fuming over punk’s obsolescence quickly play them anything by the OBN IIIs, particularly the band’s sizzling debut long player from last year THE ONE AND ONLY, released through prolific indie Tic Tac Totally. Said curmudgeon will either snap right back onto the trail of righteous thinking or you’ll know right away that sadly, you’re attempt at resuscitating a musical mind occurred too late, for this Austin TX band, led by and named for singer/screamer Orville Bateman Neeley III, pound down some of the finest, rippingest, unsubtlest Stooge-oid rumble and slam to have graced my long-violated ears since the heyday of the ‘80s Australian u-ground or even ‘85’s LAST TRAIN TO HAGERSTOWN by mighty Maryland maulers The Left. But the OBN IIIs are far from any sort of throwback, as THE ONE AND ONLY’s “When the Shit Fits” easily proves. It swaggers forth with the kind of mid-tempo muscle that was occasionally summoned by only a select handful of the most inspired post-Detroit bashers, but frankly none of those admirable bands possessed the attitudinal daring to open with what most people would choose as the closer. That’s what’s called chutzpah, and Mr. Neeley and co has it in buckets. Another swell reference point for the band’s sound is San Francisco’s first wave titans Crime. Like those monsters of “Hot Wire My Heart” fame, OBN III’s care not a bit about speed for the sake of it, instead choosing to simply buckle down and deliver dense slabs of riff crunch that add up to one huge wallop. Plus, these guys understand a few crucial factors about the peaks and valleys of rock dynamics as spread across two sides of a full length punk disc, a fact made clear by THE ONE AND ONLY’s dozen songs forming a scorching mass that suffers from neither sameiness nor unwise stabs at sonic or thematic variation. The OBN III’s basically do one thing and do it extremely well, and all importantly they recognize this not as a fault but as their core strength, at least at this stage in the game. It’s certainly possible they could slowly integrate disparate elements into the whole, for this is after all just their first LP. And based on this slab of righteous throb, any motions toward stylistic branching will be far more likely to arise as natural integrations and not ill-advised stabs at tonal variety. But the OBN IIIs’ songs flaunt such a high standard of unhyphenated punk quality that I’d like to see how long they can stay on this direct course; two or three more albums of this pure (but not purist) expression of heaving junk and golden snot would signify a true rarity in the punk continuum. As a truly heavy band (meaning they possess a bruising rhythm section that understands its role and works it to the hilt) they could prove up to the task. Perhaps the best track on THE ONE AND ONLY is “Get off Your Knees”, a gorgeously ragged bout of post-Heartbreakers throat rip and string burn, but the Eddy Current-like “Communicated to Death” isn’t far behind, nor is the moody Iggy-isms of “New Dark Age”. But the more I listen to this record the more I’m tempted to declare that the OBN III’s are the stuff of truly classic punk imbued with the vitality of the here and now, which means this gets my highest recommendation.

For many the concept of pop music is synonymous with hit singles, constant radio play and some aspect of celebrity. And this is certainly the dominant public role of pop, as a marketplace driven thing that weaves into the culture and enters the consciousness of individuals in ways far beyond the realm of personal choice: blasted over the public address systems in sports arenas or used on television as bumpers to commercial breaks as those same sporting events are transmitted to millions; used in trailers to movies where the actual song will never actually appear; and playing over the radio in the drug store while standing in line to buy cold medicine. This can be summed up as the transmission of pop songs as a sort of musical manifestation of a language virus as proposed by writer William S. Burroughs. It’s a concept that can actually be somewhat interesting from a distance but is assuredly less so after being broadsided by the (sorta intrinsic) banality of Katy Perry for the sixth time in one calendar day. To put a fine point on it, this isn’t the realm of musical discourse that appeals to me; I’m far more interested in subterranean pop, a concept first exposed to me through the early fanzine rumblings of a Pacific Northwest concern that eventually became known as the record label Sub Pop. Up to that point, as a young rockist lad I’d superficially identified the concept of pop as simply the enemy. And it was a long time before I truly shook off the bias against pop as form; for years I denigrated Motown slickness as inferior to the earthiness of Stax for just one example. Actually listening to a grip of Motown stuff outside the typical golden oldies radio rotation helped hip me to the reality of pop as an actual highly adaptable style and not just a signifier of chart success. Buddy Holly, Beatles, Beach Boys and Bowie helped out as well. Since the dawn of the 1980s there has been a fairly well documented pop underground birthed from the comely loins of post-punk as inseminated by the liberating ethos of DIY, and while this global scene has ebbed and flowed in both prolificacy and critical favor over the years, it’s always been a true alternative to the increasingly vapid and coldly corporate flavors of the pop mainstream. Right now subterranean pop, if not experiencing a boom, does seem to be in a fairly fertile, healthy period, and one example would be Oakland CA’s Shannon and the Clams. Fronted by Shannon Shaw, a name/voice some will recognize from participation in excellent fellow Oaktown residents Hunx and His Punx, the Clams are a boldly backward-looking proposition. They could even be described as retro, a term I normally employ as a negative. But the pop playground is quite receptive to the concept of tackling older, outmoded sensibilities and revitalizing them as new while never denying (and often celebrating) the appropriation; Adele, Neko Case and US. Girls are three wildly divergent examples of this practice (both in terms of style and popularity) that just happen to share the same gender as Ms. Shaw. So if Shannon and the Clams are retro they are shrewdly so, and the cut of their jib encompasses a limited base that still provides a plurality of possibilities, specifically pre-Beatles American pop and rock. On the Clams’ debut I WANNA GO HOME this meant a big dish of trashy rockabilly, some unabashedly punk moves lifted from no earlier than the Carter Administration and the sort of urban greaser vibes that still give Lou Reed a tentpole in his Speedos to this very day. No need for Viagra with that guy. Just ask Laurie. But on SLEEP TALK, last year’s exceptional sophomore effort, the Clams retain those elements and add Spector-esque girl group gestures and lightly applied doo wop nods to the equation. And it’s a good, spicy stew, opening with “Baby Don’t Do it”’s “My Boyfriend’s Back”-style handclaps and glorious echo-laden production, the whole thing lovingly screaming BACK TO MONO.  Now lots of folks will hear this record’s production and consider it affected. That’s simply a miscalculation inspired by hearing too much contempo radio pabulum. Just because Shannon and the Clams choose to eschew the gloss of tech in the delivery of their songs doesn’t mean their work is mannered or inscrutable in a present-day context. Frankly, SLEEP TALK is drenched with analog warmth that serves as an antidote to the sterility that often exudes from the digital realm. The real growing quality on this LP has thus far been its applications of not just doo wop but also the flashes of throwaway teenage trash from an era when rock ‘n’ roll held no real cultural capital. Specifically, I’m thinking of “The Cult Song”, with its growling “unga-bunga”-style vocal hi-jinks. And there are plenty of prickly pop confections on display throughout SLEEP TALK, but I also like how they’ve enhanced the ‘70s punk angle. On I WANNA GO HOME these motions sorta registered as indebted to The Rezillos (which is cool), but on this record's “King of the Sea” they inch toward the heaving worthiness of The Bags or even fellow Bay area residents The Avengers, the song forming a nice punkoid combo punch with the Mary Monday-esque “Toxic Revenge”. To sum up, I don’t have a problem with Best Coast working with Jon Brion; in fact I’m curious to hear what they come up with. But the idea of their artistic union just doesn’t stoke my coals like the unrefined charms of Shannon and the Clams, and I’d love to see Shaw and crew head out on a nice nationwide tour with Mark Sultan preaching the gospel of doo wop & girl group’s eternal disposability.

Joseph's Picks Of The Week 1/13/12 - The Louvin Brothers and Townes Van Zandt

Obviously the cover of Ira and Charlie Louvin’s 1959 country gospel classic holds a bold kitsch value that threatens to eclipse the considerable quality of the album’s contents. For some, the sight of the white-suited Louvin’s standing in front of an ultra-cheap set of burning rocks (actually well hidden tires) and a wooden devil possibly inspired by a can of Underwood ham spread is a source of endless mirth, and I won’t deny that my first encounter with the LP inspired a long gawk and a hearty giggle at what I chalked up as the accidental wrongheadedness of the sleeve. But these days (and for a long while previous) my interest in The Louvin Brothers has been not as the punch line of a joke at their expense but instead as one of the finest acts country music ever produced. Between 1955-’61 the pair landed ten top twenty hits on the country chart, performing secular material necessitated by their membership in the Grand Ole Opry. But they never turned their back on the gospel music that instigated their career, and it’s the duo’s dedication to their church-inspired close-harmony style that has provided them with such continued relevance and historical import, for The Louvin’s provide the lasting link between eternally worthy old-time brother groups like The Blue Sky Boys and The Delmore Brothers and the style’s subsequent manifestation into the rock ‘n’ roll era through the tales of teen tribulations harmonized by Phil and Don Everly. While TRAGIC SONGS OF LIFE is The Louvin’s best album of secular material, SATAN IS REAL is by a nose their finest religious work (edging out THE FAMILY WHO PRAYS), and an inspection of all of their Capitol material is essential to understanding exactly what transpired in country music between the death of Hank Williams and the emergence of George Jones, Buck Owens and Merle Haggard. While it would be ill-advised hyperbole to call SATAN IS REAL a concept album, it can be accurately described as a thematic one. This theme could be diminished by the dubious as rather basic, but it is there and it is strongly felt; the opening title track is cast as a sermon by Ira that makes no bones about his belief in the existence of Satan and the evil wrought by his power. Ira Louvin states his religious conviction so strongly that it becomes a take it or leave it proposition. Countless thousands have snickered at SATAN IS REAL’s cover photo, but upon hearing its first cut it becomes boldly clear that The Louvin Brothers’ religious belief is no laughing matter. From there the record provides a sequential pathway through a variety of modes; first celebrations of Christian faith (“There’s a Higher Power”, “The Christian Life”, “The River of Jordan”), followed by the innate fallibility of humankind and the power of salvation (“The Kneeling Drunkard’s Plea”, “Are You Afraid To Die”, “He Can Be Found”) and concluded with the inevitability of death and the crossroads of the afterlife (“Dying from Home, and Lost”, “The Drunkard’s Doom”, “Satan’s Jeweled Crown”, “The Angel’s Rejoiced Last Night”, “I’m Ready to Go Home”). A dozen tracks in just a little over thirty minutes that methodically relate The Louvin’s intentions and with an all important musical vibrancy. “There’s a Higher Power” has a trace of country-swing in its britches and features some tough guitar licks, “The River of Jordan” can honestly be said to border on rocking, and “He Can Be Found” essays the Louvin's influence on The Everly Brothers in a nutshell. But the finesse and verve of Charlie and Ira’s close-harmony is on display throughout, and SATAN IS REAL is a fine listen for non-believers and the devout alike. The album sits at a crossroads of old-time tradition and subsequent developments in country music; “The Kneeling Drunkard’s Plea”, a Carter Family cover, looks to the past while “The Christian Life” points to the future through its inclusion on The Byrds’ crucial SWEETHEARTS OF THE RODEO. Ira Louvin was by all reports an ornery cuss whose difficult disposition eventually broke up the duo in the early ‘60s. He died in a car crash in ’65, but Charlie was a modest commercial success for the next decade and had a nice 21st century resurgence with a pair of fine albums for the unimpeachable Tompkins Square label. I consider myself lucky to have seen him play a strong, relaxed set at the Bonnaroo Festival a few years back, for he died in January of last year.  The Louvin Brothers’ music lives on however, and SATAN IS REAL is one of their finest works.

Townes Van Zandt was one of the true bittersweet troubadours of American Music. The woeful obscurity that afflicted him during a life too short and rife with trouble (dead of a heart attack shy of his 53rd birthday in 1997 after many years of drug and alcohol addiction) is hard to reconcile with the nude beauty of his music; The Velvet Underground’s now legendary lack of popularity while extant was basically tied to their being so defiantly ahead of their time, Big Star’s elusive sales figures were directly related to how they harkened back and revitalized the tidy appeal of ‘60s pop-rock in an era that greatly preferred excess, and Don Van Vliet was a kingpin of cult mainly because he was such a blatant weird-meat, but Townes Van Zandt was just a powerful singer and brilliant songwriter whose early recordings should’ve been, if not huge, than certainly substantially bigger than they actually were at the time of their release. From ’68-’72 Van Zandt recorded six albums that slowly solidified his reputation as a true rough diamond in the oft-problematic category of singer-songwriter, and it can be speculated that the guy’s natural blend of folk and country was perhaps a little bit urbane for the C&W hardliners of the time and maybe too tough for a folk-set that was preparing to turn the corner into the mellow hell of James Taylor etc. But at worst this should’ve somewhat limited Van Zandt’s appeal, not kneecapped it outright; it’s far easier to surmise that lack of promotion from the small Poppy label led to his misfortune as a musician’s musician. As time marched forward and more people learned about him, the records’ general lack of availability became a problem. Even after Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard’s smash hit cover of “Poncho and Lefty” greatly increased his profile, the LPs were still pretty scarce in the racks, at least in my neck of the woods. By the point of indie imprint Tomato’s reissuing of certain Poppy titles in ’89, it seemed he was destined to be cursed with eternal cult status, joining names like Tim Hardin, Fred Neil, Guy Clark and Mickey Newbury in a club of exemplary writers given unfair commercial shakes as performers of their own material. Van Zandt’s first two records, ‘68’s FOR THE SAKE OF THE SONG and the following year’s OUR MOTHER THE MOUNTAIN are fine examples of a songwriting talent of uncommon maturity brandishing an artistry compromised to differing extents by Jack Clement’s often ill-advised production ideas. While both albums ultimately reveal traits and angles that make them essential to understanding the formative creativity of their maker, the first true masterpiece in Van Zandt’s discography is his self-titled third LP, also released in ’69 and recorded in Nashville at the storied studio of Owen Bradley, a figure simultaneously renowned and derided as an architect of the Countrypolitan sound. But like the Beau Brummels’ proto-country-rock classic BRADLEY’S BARN, TOWNES VAN ZANDT wisely lacks any of the strings, choirs and syrupy chart gloss that made Bradley’s name. The LP does feature four re-recordings of songs from his debut, with each a startling improvement upon its original, particularly opener “For the Sake of the Song”; where the first version of the tune simply can’t escape Clement’s intention to mold it into something similar to a hard luck Harry Nilsson hanging out in a dusty border town and waxing poetic over a gorgeous if perplexing conchita, the second try cozies up to near perfection by stripping away any straining attempts at marketability, instead smartly relying upon the spare authority of voice and guitar. When the accompaniment does assert itself it possesses a subtle, timeless quality that aids the song by never overwhelming it. This is a hard act to follow, but thankfully Van Zandt has broad range inspired by a diversity of influence, with two of his biggest inspirations being Hank Williams and Lightnin’ Hopkins. His occasional welcome detours into blues or gospel material would really flourish on later albums, but TOWNES VAN ZANDT leaves nothing to be desired in terms of sonic breadth. “Columbine” completely nails an aura of pretty mid-tempo finger-picking without falling prey to the inconsequential lightness that’s been plaguing folkies since they started spinning introspective. In this he’s proved a key influence on alt-country practitioners and freak-folk denizens alike, showing how to take a turn into the beatific without floating off into the distance like so much dandelion fluff. But he can also hit an extended note of existential despair with grace that seems effortless (“Waiting Around to Die”) and when he does add bluesy touches (the slide guitar on “Lungs”, the gnawing harmonica on “Waiting...”) it resonates with sincere appreciation of the style and not a quick study in genre grafting. There are of course songs that under different circumstances could’ve translated into commercial hits; the gorgeous fragility of “None But the Rain” (replete with non-crap flute), the expert country stroll through a no-nonsense ode to a wounded heart that is “Don’t Take It Too Bad” and the shrewdly implicit Dylanisms of “Fair Thee Well, Miss Carousel” for three instances. But when regarding the discography of the man it’s best not to dwell for very long over what might’ve been. That line of thinking positions this vital artist as a failure or at least something close to it, and one listen to TOWNES VAN ZANDT (or any of his prime material for that matter) will easily prove the fallacy of that notion. By extension, I don’t think it’s really appropriate to compare him to chart successes like Outlaw Country cornerstones Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson. Instead, it’s seems best to place his oeuvre within the context of albums from other underappreciated and stylistically similar writer-players of the period like Newbury’s “American Trilogy” (comprised of the titles LOOKS LIKE RAIN, ‘FRISCO MABEL JOY and HEAVEN HELP THE CHILD), Clark’s OLD NO. 1 and TEXAS COOKIN’, the Flatlanders’ MORE A LEGEND THAN A BAND, Jerry Jeff Walker’s ¡VIVA TERLINGUA! and Terry Allen’s LUBBOCK (ON EVERYTHING). What, you haven’t heard those records? Well then, best get cracking. But please don’t forget Townes Van Zandt, friend. His collected output is a jewel in the wealth of this country’s disparate song form, and to miss it is to do your ears a great disservice.