New Albums from Classic Women Vocalists and a Newcomer – Rosanne Cash, Chrissie Hynde, and Rachel Price

Some famous female vocalists have new music out, and a great new singer has arrived on the scene.

Rosanne Cash, eldest daughter of Johnny and superstar in her own right, released “The River and the Thread” in January. The album has received its share of good reviews, and the first track is “A Feather’s Not a Bird”. The album’s producer is Rosanne’s husband John Leventhal, who also co-wrote all the songs and plays lead guitar on this performance. If you like the video below, check out this studio performance of “The Long Way Home” with John backing Rosanne on acoustic guitar.

Perhaps the best Rock & Roll frontwoman ever is Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders. Almost 35 years after “Brass in Pocket” launched the band’s career, Chrissie is about to release her first solo album. “Stockholm” is due out in June, and the first single “Dark Sunglasses” has been released. Unfortunately, the video shows us no Chrissie, just a bunch of folks wearing – you guessed it. If you want to see Chrissie front the Pretenders in their heyday, 30 years ago, check out the other video too. The video quality isn’t great, but don’t you wish you’d been there?

Back in October we wrote about Lake Street Dive covering a Jackson Five tune. The band is now out with a new full-length LP “Bad Self Portraits” that is fresh and absolutely delightful from start to finish. The band’s lead singer, Rachel Price, has a great voice and a unique style that propels the band’s range of jazz, soul and R&B tunes. Here is the title track from the new album, and “You Go Down Smooth”.

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2014 Grammy Awards – Mining Gems in the Lesser Known Categories

Last night’s Grammy awards may have delivered a few surprises in the major categories, but our enthusiasm for Daft Punk’s “Random Access Memories” and its hit song “Get Lucky” were matched by the Recording Academy’s. It was also nice to see a couple of awards go to Dave Grohl for the “Sound City” CD, including one to him and Paul McCartney for the track “Cut Me Some Slack”.

But scrolling way down the nominees and winners list on the Grammy website, you can find some gems that didn’t make the telecast or the mainstream media coverage.

In the Best American Roots Song category, comic genius and banjo player Steve Martin teamed up with Edie Brickell, wife of Paul Simon and former chanteuse of the New Bohemians, to write and perform “Love Has Come For You”.

In the category of Best Instrumental Arrangement, Gordon Goodwin put out a very nice take of the jazz classic “On Green Dolphin Street” performed by his Big Phat Band. Goodwin has won a Grammy before and picked up 13 nominations, and is also a three-time Emmy Award winner for his compositions and arrangements.

Twenty years after the release of Hootie and the Blowfish’s “Cracked Rear View”, the 16th best selling album in U.S. history, frontman Darius Rucker won this year’s Best Country Solo Performance for “Wagon Wheel”.

And finally, Best Traditional R&B Performance went to Gary Clark, Jr. for “Please Come Home”. Though most celebrated for his guitar playing (the solo comes at about 1:35), he shows off a fine falsetto on this tune. To hear Clark at his bluesy, guitar-slinging best (sans falsetto), check out his performance at the White House.

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RIP Phil Everly

Phil Everly, with his older brother Don the Everly Brothers, died on Friday in California. Famous for a string of hits that began with “Bye Bye Love” and “Wake Up Little Susie”, both released in 1957, the massive influence of the duo’s vocal harmonizing was recognized with inclusion in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s inaugural class in 1986. Here are the Everly Brothers performing those hits.

Many of their hits were written by others, including the two in the videos above, but Phil wrote 1960’s “When Will I Be Loved” which also became Linda Ronstadt’s second highest charting single in 1974. Interesting note: Ronstadt was just elected to this year’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame class.

Phil and Don also wrote “Gone Gone Gone”, covered by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss on their 2007 collaboration “Raising Sand”.

Phil did live to see Billy Joe Armstrong of Green Day and Norah Jones release “Foreverly” this past November, a song-for-song reinterpretation of the Everly Brothers’ second album “Songs Our Daddy Taught Us”. Here’s the first single released from that album.

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Danny Gatton – The Greatest Guitarist You Never Heard Of

Been waiting to write this post all year. September 4th was the birthday of the late Danny Gatton – the best guitarist the world never heard of and one of the best guitarists of all time, period. Nicknamed “The Humbler”, Gatton combined dazzling technique with his own creative fusion of rockabilly, blues, jazz, country and a bit of everything else.

He grew up in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. and spent much of his life playing close to home. His aversion to touring may have been a major factor in his lack of commercial success, but he was a musician’s musician. Legend and innovator Les Paul said of Gatton, “He could do anything the other guy could do … and do it better”.

“Funhouse” from his 1993 album “Cruisin’ Deuces” shows Gatton’s massive technique delivering tasty solos that don’t easily fit into any genre.

Gatton’s closest brush with mainstream fame may have been his Grammy nomination for the track “Elmira Street Boogie” which showed off his bluesy, rockabilly side.

For those who got to see Danny play live, a favorite stage trick was his slide work with a beer bottle. His solo starts around 4:20 in this video, and don’t worry about the beer dripping from the fretboard of his Fender Telecaster – at around 5:30 he cleans it up!

Nickel Creek Alums Inventing New Takes on Bluegrass

The trio of Sara Watkins, brother Sean Watkins, and Chris Thile formed Nickel Creek in 1989, and after polishing their sound for a decade, won a slew of Grammy, CMA and other awards between 2000 and 2005. The band made its farewell tour in 2007, with the members pursuing their individual careers since.

Chris Thile pulled together a fantastic string quartet that included Yo Yo Ma for the Grammy-winning “Goat Rodeo Sessions” released in 2012. The perfectly synchronized vocals of Thile and Aiofe O’Donovan on “Here and Heaven” are incredible, and pay close attention to see if you can figure out when the members of the quartet switch instruments.

2012 also saw Sara release her second solo effort, “Sun Midnight Sun”, which she supported by touring with Jackson Browne that summer. Here’s the video for “You and Me”, released in April 2013.

In case you hadn’t heard much of Nickel Creek back in the day, here is a track from their eponymous third album released in 2000. The album was produced by Alison Krauss and launched the trio’s big run.