Roots Rock Lives! – Suggestions from All Around

Bluesy roots rock is alive and well, with plenty of soulful, raspy voices, guitars of all sorts, and lyrics about heartbreak and women.

A reader suggestion (thanks, Pete!) leads us to JJ Grey from Jacksonville, Florida, recently proclaimed “The Swami of Swamp Rock” in this article from Oxford American magazine. Here is his band, JJ Grey and Mofro, performing “99 Shades of Crazy” from the April 2013 CD “This River”,

Music blog pH balanced, posted news of Amos Lee’s upcoming release, “Mountains of Sorrow, Rivers of Song”, and here’s a live performance of “The Man Who Wants You” from that CD. If you check out more of Lee’s material, you’ll see it generally runs in a softer vein that this track.

While JJ and Amos have solid followings, The Tedeschi Trucks Band is roots rock royalty. Singer/guitarist Susan Tedeschi opened for acts ranging from B.B. King to Bob Dylan to the Rolling Stones early in her career. Her husband, Derek Trucks (nephew of Butch Trucks from the original Allman Brothers Band) was a child prodigy who played guitar with his uncle’s band and is now perhaps the best known slide guitar player working. The Tedeschi Trucks Band’s first album “Revelator” won the 2012 Grammy for Best Blues Album, and their second release “Made Up Mind” is just out. Here’s the title track.

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Janelle Monae Delivers Some End of Summer Fun and Recalls Great Girl Rock

As we mark the first day of fall, Janelle Monae hands us a last bit of summer fun with “Dance Apocalyptic” from her recently released “The Electric Lady”. How can you not love a song with a lyric “chalang-alang-alang”? In the video, Janelle departs from her signature tuxedo style and lets her hair down literally and figuratively.

The song can’t help but recall infectious tunes given to us over the years by other talented women. Here are some bands and songs that come to mind listening to “Dance Apocalyptic” – and they may have inspired Monae’s white-on-white motif: Veruca Salt in the 90s, The Bangles in the 80s, and the B-52’s in the 70s (delivering the other party song we’ll certainly play at the Apocalypse).

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Happy Birthday, Elvis Costello!

Since his first single was released in March 1977, Elvis Costello has remained a prolific artist ranging all over the musical spectrum. His new album “Wise Up Ghost” is due out in mid-September, and it’s a collaboration with hip hop legends The Roots. The collaboration was conceived when Costello performed on the Jimmy Fallon late-night TV show, where The Roots gig as the house band.

The first track from the new album, “Walk Us Uptown”, will certainly whet your appetite to hear the full release. Costello’s sinister vocals coupled with Questlove’s drums and jazzy Roots bass lines are an intoxicating mix.

The title of Costello’s first album “My Aim Is True” was drawn from the 5th track “Alison”. While “Alison” was not a hit single at the time, it’s become a favorite in Elvis’ catalog. Give a listen and then listen to “Less Than Zero”, his first hit from that same album.

And finally, Questlove published a memoir in June 2013 titled “Mo’ Meta Blues”. Here’s a link to the New York Times review The Big Man Under the Afro, and His Music.

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Backup Singers Take 20 Giant Steps Forward

Over the past few months the documentary “20 Steps From Stardom” has been showing up in limited release. Directed by Morgan Neville, an Emmy winning and Grammy nominated creator of music documentaries, the film debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2013 and tells the stories of women whose vocals have been so much more than “backup” for decades of hits. This clip from SimplyShowbiz.com begins with an interview of Merry Clayton telling the improbable story of one of the most memorable pieces of backup work ever.

While these backup singers remain largely unknown, big stars cover their iconic vocal tracks. Here are a couple working to capture the magic that Merry Clayton created. The first clip features Alicia Keys at the New York Live Earth concert in 2007 (this is a great performance if you’ve never seen it), and the second features a Lady Gaga cameo at an early date on the Stones’ 50 & Counting tour.

And, of course, we can’t end without hearing the original in all its glory.

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Joe Robinson – Up and Comer from Down Under

A few weeks ago we wrote about one of the world’s guitar legends, Tommy Emmanuel, from Australia. Turns out Tommy has been mentoring a young countryman named Joe Robinson for over a decade, and the results of studying under the master clearly show.

Robinson has won a string of awards, both in his home country and internationally (check out his Wikipedia page Joe Robinson), and his relationship to Emmanuel really came through when he won “Australia’s Got Talent” at age 16. His performances included a Beatles medley and an arrangement of Mason William’s 1968 multi-Grammy winning “Classical Gas”. Compare Robinson’s Beatles medley to Emmanuel’s in our earlier post, and watch both the master and the student cover “Classical Gas”.

But lest we leave the impression that Robinson simply hews closely to the style of his teacher, here are two examples of Joe’s other dimensions – “Out Alive” and “Lethal Injection” (which also features fine bass work from Bernard Harris), both from his 2012 album “Let Me Introduce You”.