2015 Grammy Nominees – American Roots

Rummaging through the 2015 Grammy nominees, the American Roots category stands out as a catch all for great tracks and albums by artists from many genres. Across its Best Performance, Best Song and Best Album sub-categories, Roseanne Cash is nominated in all three (see our earlier post), and John Hiatt in two (see our earlier post)

The most dramatic song on the Best Performance list comes from the album “Map to the Treasure: Reimagining Laura Nyro”. It’s a cover of “And When I Die” performed by pianist Billy Childs (who’s responsible for the album project), with vocals by Alison Krauss and guitar by Jerry Douglas. You have to love when artists take a song in a unique new direction. Listen to the new version alongside Laura’s original. You may also want to remember the Blood, Sweat & Tears hit version.

Another nominee from the Best Performance list is “Statesboro Blues” from the concert “All My Friends – Celebrating The Songs and Voice of Gregg Allman” that took place back in January. The track features Taj Mahal and Gregg Allman sharing the vocals, and that is a significant pairing. Taj Mahal performed the song on his eponymous 1968 debut album, featuring slide guitar by Jesse Ed Davis. The story goes that Gregg Allman gave the Taj Mahal record to his brother Duane along with a glass pill bottle one day, and that was the beginning of Duane’s slide guitar playing. Give a listen to the nominated performance and Taj’s earlier version.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQMU1S8FhKg

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Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Nominees – Beyond the Obvious Picks

A few weeks ago, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame announced the nominees for the Class of 2015, with 16 acts spanning a broad range of styles and eras. The annual announcement is always a great chance to remember acts who may have faded a bit from memory, but were very important in their day.

From the era of the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival (the same one where Jimi first set his guitar on fire) and Woodstock, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band played classic Chicago blues fronted by their singing and harmonica playing namesake. Butterfield was a talented young man from a well-to-do Chicago family. He studied classical flute in high school, was offered a track scholarship to Brown, and studied at the University of Chicago where he met bandmate Elvin Bishop. Fellow Chicago native Mike Bloomfield was another notable member of the band. Here’s a performance from Monterey. That’s Bishop on guitar, and Bloomfield clapping enthusiastically at the end of Butterfield’s soulful singing and harmonica work.

War formed in the 1960’s in L.A. and hit the big time when Eric Burdon, formerly of the Animals, joined the band in 1969. Who can forget their first big hit, “Spill the Wine”. Burdon only stayed with the group for a couple of years, but War kept bringing the funk well into the 1970’s. Enjoy these live versions of “Spill the Wine” and “Slipping into Darkness”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3i0DMbCKnAg

Bill Withers is still around, though not performing anymore, and he put up a string of hits beginning with 1971’s “Ain’t No Sunshine” and running through 1981’s “Just the Two of Us”. Both songs won Grammy’s for Best R&B Song. Wither’s highest charting single, though, was 1972’s “Use Me”. Here’s a live performance of that tune by Bill, and a truly out-there cover by Mick Jagger from his 1993 solo album “Wandering Spirit”. Lenny Kravitz contributes.

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New Music Courtesy of The Delete Bin

Found a new blog to follow, The Delete Bin, by Rob Jones of Vancouver, Canada. A few weeks back he put together 16 recommendations to add to an autumn playlist, and here are a few favorites.

The Last Internationale is a trio fronted by singer/bassist/guitarist Delila Paz. They play a mix of hard rocking numbers and acoustic folk tunes in a classic rock vein. Lots of politically conscious titles and lyrics in their repertoire like “Killing Fields” and “Workers of the World Unite”, and they’re not afraid to tackle Trayvon Martin in a style reminiscent of Dylan’s “Hurricane”. Not much of a surprise they caught the ear of Tom Morello who signed on as their executive producer. Here’s the first track from their debut album “We Will Reign”, “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Indian Blood”. And on the new album Delila pulls off a nice cover of the classic “Baby It’s You”.

The Wind and The Wave is an Austin, Texas folk duo Patricia Lynn and Dwight Baker. Their first album “From The Wreckage” is available now. Spend some time with this promo video that introduces the band and features some live performance clips.

If you like late 70’s / early 80’s pop and want to be the first kid on your block to check out videos that have barely dozens of YouTube views, check out Ransom and the Subset. Their debut album “No Time to Lose” is just out this month. Here are two tracks from the new release, “Anna” and “Million Out of Me”. Pure fun.

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John Hiatt – Master Songwriter Spins Out His 22nd Studio Album

John Hiatt released his new album, “Terms of My Surrender”, in July. While not a household name, Hiatt has a loyal following among fans and musicians alike. His songs have been covered on stage or in the studio by artists ranging from Bob Dylan and Eric Clapton, to Willie Nelson and Rosanne Cash, to Bonnie Raitt and Keith Urban. In his own albums and on stage, Hiatt has played alongside fellow singer-songwriters Ry Cooder, Nick Lowe, and Lyle Lovett and with a host of great musicians.

The opening track of the new album “Long Time Comin'” is the song Hiatt is performing most in his TV and radio promotional gigs, but also check out the last track “Come Back Home”.

Hiatt’s most successful string of albums were recorded for A&M and then Capitol between 1987 and 1998. The first of those albums, “Bring the Family”, includes the song “Have a Little Faith in Me”. It’s one of Hiatt’s most covered songs, and his version has showed up in the soundtracks of a number of movies. Here is John performing the song at the time it was released.

1995’s “Walk On” included the song “Cry Love”. Here’s a live unplugged performance backed by a couple of great session musicians, Davey Faragher on bass and David Immergluck on mandolin.

Before you leave give a listen to “Memphis in the Meantime”, also from “Bring the Family”. That’s Ry Cooder’s slide guitar giving the track a completely unique sound.

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New Music from the Titans of Rock and Roll

Over the past few weeks, and continuing into the next couple of months, a host of big name rock and roll artists are releasing new albums. From Prince to the Foo Fighters, U2 to Weezer, and John Mellencamp to Jeff Tweedy, there is plenty already here or on the way.

A few days ago Robert Plant put out his first new album in four years, “lullaby and… The Ceaseless Roar”. While there are official music videos out for a few tracks, Plant is at his most engaging on stage. Here are recent live performances of the album’s first two songs, “Little Maggie” and “Rainbow”.

In November Bob Dylan’s “The Basement Tapes Complete” will be released, apparently collecting every audible shred of material from the legendary 1967 sessions – a total of 138 tracks on 6 CDs. But possibly more interesting will be another November release, “Lost On The River – The New Basement Tapes”. In the fall of last year, producer T Bone Burnett received a stack of recently discovered, hand-written Dylan lyrics from Dylan’s publisher. They were written in 1967 during the time of the Basement Tape sessions but were never set to music. Burnett pulled together an all-star team including Elvis Costello, Marcus Mumford, Jim James of My Morning Jacket, Taylor Goldsmith of Dawes, and Grammy winning folk artist Rhiannon Giddens to write music for the lyrics and perform the songs for a new album. Of the album’s 20 tracks recorded in the space of only two weeks, videos for two have now been released, “Nothing to It” and “Married to My Hack”.