New Soundtrack Work, Upcoming Releases Highlight Busy Months For Emmylou

Emmylou Harris has entered into a stretch of work that sees three releases out in the coming months, plus the promise of a landmark tour as well, and some special one-off performances of classic material.  Out right now is the soundtrack to the new movie Lawless, on which Harris is a guest vocalist.  As well she just performed at Daniel Lanois' Greenbelt Harvest Picnic in Dundas, Ontario, doing a rare set of tunes from her classic 1995 album Wrecking Ball, which Lanois produced.

The Wrecking Ball performance on Sept. 1 was the second time Harris had teamed up with Lanois and his band to revisit the disc, having performed it last year at the inaugural Picnic.  This time, there were extra hands on board that made it even more special:  drummer Brian Blade had played on those 1995 sessions, as had Lanois associate Malcolm Burn, who went on to produce the next two Harris albums after Wrecking Ball.  The performance had the feeling of a family reunion, and Harris was clearly pleased to revisit the tracks.  "It's just such a wonderful chance to do these songs with Dan, it's a totally different thing," she said after the show  "He's so unique, he has a totally different sound.  All musicians are unique, they have their own thumb print.  But he's got a big thumb," she added, laughing.

Wrecking Ball remains a highlight in Harris' career, a favourite for many fans, and certainly one of Harris's own picks.  "I think it's a watershed," she says of that album.  "I think I had been treading water, I think my records were good, I always put my best effort, and I worked with great people, but ...I was at a log jam, and I almost didn't know I had it until Dan came along and blew it up with that record.  All kinds of new rhythms and new melodies and stuff just came flooding through."

It turns out that the close musicians of this group, including Harris and Lanois, have decided to make these Wrecking Ball performances a semi-regular event.  "It's not a bad thing to just do that once a year," says Harris, "because it's so great to do those songs with Dan, and of course having Brian Blade there this year, who was so much a part of the record, and Malcolm!  So that's really nice, and we're going to do it in Nashville next month for a benefit for animal rescue we're working on.  So we do it, but for benefits, for the greater good."

Fans of the album will be thrilled to learn about the imminent release of a deluxe version of the album:  "It's actually going to be re-released, I hope pretty soon, with some extra tracks, alongside also the wonderful long-form video that (Dan's brother) Bob Lanois filmed, called Building The Wrecking Ball. So I think there's a package heading our way."

At this point, Harris isn't sure if that will come first, or another special disc, her newest recordings.  Harris has teamed up again with two people from the start of her solo career, singer-songwriter Rodney Crowell, and producer Brian Ahern.  Crowell came to fame after a couple of his cuts were chosen for Harris' debut disc, 1975's Pieces Of The Sky.  Crowell then joined her group The Hot Band, and eventually became a hit artist in his own right.  But he and Emmylou had always talked about doing a complete album of his songs.  "Rodney and I just finished a record, long awaited," Harris confirms.  "You think you have all the time in the world, and then one day I went, man, you know, if we're going to do this record, we gotta do it, you just never know how long you're going to be around.  It was on my bucket list, that record with Rodney, almost since the first day we met.  It's done now, and Brian Ahern produced it.  I think February is the date they're putting out there, but we'll see.  I really can't wait for it to come out, because I want to go out there and do some touring with him and sing some songs."

Meanwhile, Harris is a big part of a very cool CD soundtrack put together by the team of Nick Cave and Warren Ellis.  Cave's most recent script-writing project has been for the movie Lawless, which is set in the rural U.S. during the prohibition era, and follows some reckless bootleggers.  He and fellow Bad Seed Ellis also crafted the music, and it's a big step beyond the usual package of already-recorded tunes.  Cave selected a diverse group of singers, including Harris, bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley, and Seattle rocker Mark Lanegan, and wrote or selected an equally-mixed bunch of songs to fit the movie.  Harris is the singer on a couple of Cave/Ellis originals, the haunting Cosmonaut, and a recurring theme in the movie, Fire In The Blood.  She also gets to do Townes Van Zandt's Snake Song, and one by James Lyttle, So You'll Aim Towards The Sky.  Stanley is put to interesting use, singing on a Capt. Beefheart blues, Sure 'Nuff 'N Yes I Do, and also croaking to the Velvet Underground's White Light/White Heat.  Somehow Cave and Ellis make it all sound period and believable, rivaling the best of T Bone Burnett's soundtrack work.

MUSIC REVIEW OF THE DAY: BOB MARLEY & THE WAILERS - IN DUB VOL. 1

The inexhaustible supply of Marley releases continues with a whole new line.  Compilations, live sets and deluxe editions have been flooding the shelves for over a decade, and now it's that peculiar-to-Jamaica instrumental style, dub.  Dub's influence went far and wide, with DJ's riffing over instrumental beds the direct parent of rap, and the whole idea of the dance remix coming from it as well.  It's simple:  Take off the lead vocal, and mess with the mix as little or as much as desired.

Dub fans, since there are a few, will be thrilled with tracks from the Marley trove, and the promise of more.  For the most part, these are pretty much straight-ahead versions of well-known faves:  Is This Love, Three Little Birds, One Love/People Get Ready, and the nicely titled Lively Up Your Dub.  Where there is some remixing, it's usually adding echo or pumping up the bass.  I'm never quite clear on what I'm supposed to like about these dub tracks as opposed to the original.  At least it wold make good backyard party atmosphere music.

MUSIC REVIEW OF THE DAY: NEIL DIAMOND - HOT AUGUST NIGHT 40th ANNIVERSARY DELUXE EDITION

This is the album that turned Diamond from a successful singer-songwriter into a superstar.  The double-live album was a smash around the world, and started his reputation as a master showman.

It's exactly the right time to hear him live.  1972 was when he was starting to experiment with with concept songs and albums, and hadn't gone too far down the path to preciousness (I'm not a fan of Jonathan Livingston Seagull).  He was still going for Top 40 hits and hip status, rather than Adult Contemporary and the Barbra Striesand crowd.  So we get a great run of classics:  Solitary Man, Cherry Cherry, Song Sung Blue, Cracklin' Rosie, Sweet Caroline, and Kentucky Woman among them.  A 36-piece string orchestra brings grand drama to the early 70's songs, but I prefer the stripped-down, rock band versions of the older hits.

The anniversary edition is a 2-hour double CD, lengthened by the discovery of three cuts edited out of the original album.  The highlight is a rare cover for Diamond, Randy Newman's I Think It's Going To Rain Today, the kind of melancholy and memorable number Diamond was trying to write by then.  It sits well with his I Am...I Said and Play Me.  Thankfully, Diamond has reclaimed his image in the last few years, and put You Don't Bring Me Flowers to rest.  This album shows what all the fuss was about.

DANNY MARKS NEW DISC, PLAYING PATSY CLINE TRIBUTE SHOW THURSDAY

Marks is being modest here.  I'd say he's more a best friend of the blues, with over four decades of performing, broadcasting, and living the blues in Toronto.  He's also one of those that simply loves it all, and with his great talent on guitar, can play it all too.  He can be found on the Jazz-FM channel every Saturday night, and next year starts hosting the TV show Cities In Blue for Hi Fi TV.

With all that playing and yacking, he hasn't recorded his own stuff that often, with this just his fourth solo disc.  No surprise that he had a few songs stored up then, the album featuring 12 originals.  And while he may be a friend of the blues, he's also more than a passing acquaintance of country, gospel, and folk.  That Lonesome Valley sounds like something The Statler Brothers might have worked up.  Mostly Marks takes his cues from 40's, 50's, and 60's sounds.  Blues Party Tonight is a jump blues with swagger, and Blues For Lonnie Johnson is his tribute to the slinger he saw as a teen in Toronto.

There's no showing off here, no "look at me, I'm Stevie Ray" moments, in fact none of that kind of modern electric stuff.  This is about the song first, and the expertise is in playing it well as a group.  Marks may not be the best vocalist, but it's a player's album really.  The sound is tremendously clean on all the instruments, and Marks sounds the best in the folk-blues style, as a story-teller.

He's also going to be one of the guests performing in Toronto's annual Patsy Cline tribute concert, now in its seventh year.  Organized by singer and Patsy fan Heather Morgan, the show brings together all sorts of artists inspired by the woman some consider the greatest of all country singers.  This year features Mary Margaret O'Hara, Lori Yates, Russell deCarle of Prairie Oyster, Paul Reddick and a host of others, at the Lula Lounge on Thursday, Sept. 6th.  Hey, I'm finally going to see it, after years of wishing and promising.  Gee, I wonder if anyone will sing Crazy?

MUSIC REVIEW OF THE DAY: LOS LOBOS - KIKO 20th ANNIVERSARY EDITION, KIKO LIVE

Twenty years ago, Los Lobos dropped a bomb on their fans, and folks who thought they had the band pegged.  Known for Mexicali sounds, roots-rockers and for covering La Bamba in The Buddy Holly Story, it was a restrictive view, the group pigeon-holed by their race.  Yes, I'm going to play the race card, because the reaction to Kiko was often disbelieve that these Angelinos could bring in so much art and whimsy to their sound.  Like they were supposed to play Richie Valens the rest of their career?

Kiko was, and is still, a masterpiece, sixteen cuts that defy simple descriptions such as blues and folk.  On paper, and perhaps at first, the bare songs were somewhat straightforward, albeit excellent pieces of writing.  Numbers such as That Train Don't Stop Here, Angels With Dirty Faces, Two Janes and When The Circus Comes are Grade-A examples of roots songwriting.  Then, the magic of those songs grew exponentially in the studio.  Working with the renowned producer Mitchell Froom and his co-conspirator, engineer Tchad Blake, the normal instrumentation of the band, or any band, was abandoned in favour of sonic experiments.  The group was wide open to whatever tricks and atmospheres the Blake/Froom duo came up with, and responded with exceptional playing.  There were backwards recordings, strange mellotron parts, and unique groupings of percussion instruments. The very sound of the album was perhaps its crowning achievement, although it wouldn't be the same if the songs hadn't been there in the first place.

The lyrics had much to do with the mood as well.  There were the observations, such as the Angels With Dirty Faces of the impoverished areas of East L.A.  Then there were the tales of imagination, none more striking than Kiko and the Lavender Moon, with all the power of a brilliant and poignant children's story, a kid who plays with the moon.  It has a poetic magic unlike any other song in the rock canon I can think of.  Place all of these elements together:  the great songs, the lyrics, expert players, studio wizardry, the mix of genres, and you have a true classic.

For the 20th anniversary, there's a trio of releases in celebration.  The original album gets an upgrade, with new liner notes, and five worthwhile bonus cuts:  two demos, and three live songs from a radio station gig at the time.  Then there's a live concert of the entire album from 2006, from start to finish.  It comes as either a DVD or a CD.  I recommend the DVD, because it also includes interview footage with the group, talking about how the songs were written and recorded.  The show itself is again excellent, and the band member admit they were nervous going in recreating the whole album, since it would be so tough.  They do an excellent job though, right down to fade-outs and delicate touches.  Best of all, after 20 years, it's been proven that Kiko sounds as fresh today as the day it came out.

MUSIC REVIEW OF THE DAY: RY COODER - ELECTION SPECIAL

Ry Cooder has spent great parts of his career being silent, or at least not saying much, taking years between albums, and doing instrumental soundtrack work.  Now, you can't shut him up.  Cooder got upset a few years back with the state of the States, and started this current run of finger-pointing albums he's on.  Cooder's been looking around, singling out injustices, and calling out the villains.  At first, he was telling smaller stories from his California youth, describing the damage done to the Mexican community of Los Angeles when Dodger Stadium was built in their old neighbourhood of Chavez Ravine.  Then he tried on a little political discourse, although coached in a child's tale, in My Name Is Buddy.  But with last year's Pull Up Some Dust And Sit Down, and now Election Special, the gloves are off.

Cooder's ripping into the Republicans during this election year, in the same way he attacked bankers and big business on Pull Up Some Dust.  He's not mincing words; Cooder accuses them of racism, of wishing they could bring back the days of Jim Crow laws.  In opener Mutt Romney Blues, he refers to Boss Mitt Romney, that old title from slavery days for the white overseer, and talks about "the mean things you tryin' to do."  In Brother Gone, Satan appears, as power-brokers do a deal with the devil, and commence to become powerful using oil spills, cancer towns, and foreclosures.  Cold Cold Feeling could also be called Obama's Blues, Cooder cast as the President's voice, singing "If you never been President, then you don't know how it feels/Those stray dog Republicans always snappin' at my heels."  And it's pretty obvious that Cooder picked up some of his flame from the Occupy movement.  The cut The 90 and the 9 is a call to action:  "If
we don't raise some sand then our votes might slip away/and our civil rights and our equal pay."

As usual, the music on this release is brilliant, Cooder choosing to use depression-era melodies and instruments for much of the material.  When there's a Republican singing, he's cast as a redneck, and Cooder whips up some banjo tunes and sing-along,  hillbilly music.  Make no mistake, he's calling this bunch bigoted, and ignorant, being led down the same old path by the manipulators behind the scenes who stand to win millions and billions by keeping the U.S. divided by race.  And it comes with a direct warning to those very rich people:  Take Your Hands Off It opens with the line "Get your dirty hands off my constitution now", and goes on to advise the same about voter rights, unions, reproductive rights, and foreign policy.  Like much folk music of the past centuries, the stories are exaggerated, and obviously not all Republicans are bad people, or bigoted.  But Cooder is using stereotypes because of what he thinks is a dangerous situation.   He doesn't care who he offends, he just wants the greedy people gone.

A CHANCE TO WIN THE COMPLETE PLASKETT/NEW SCOTLAND RECORDS CATALOG

Now here's a worthy cause, and it comes with a chance to win a huge music prize.  A tax receipt, too.  It's win-win for your charity donation.  A fellow blogger, and good guy, Bryan Acker, has joined up with the Ride To Conquer Cancer group, essentially a great big bike ride to raise funds.  It's a personal challenge for Acker, as his father is currently battling brain cancer.

William Acker is a doctor in Halifax, and his son Bryan runs the very popular and influential Herohill site.  He's been taking donations for his ride for the cancer group, but now the ante has been raised with a great prize package for one lucky donor.  Who knows, your donation could be the winner, and you know the money is going to the right place.  Acker's pals in the music biz have come through, specifically homeboy Joel Plaskett.  Since Plaskett runs his own label, New Scotland, the boss said "open the vaults", and they did.  Some lucky donor is going to win the complete New Scotland catalog of CD's, LP's, DVD's, and 45's.  And when Joel is involved in the discs, he's going to autograph them all to the winner.

This includes the mighty 8-disc Thrush Hermit box set, all of Joel's CD's and vinyl releases (yes, you get a copy of both), albums from Steve Poltz, Dave Marsh, Al Tuck, Peter Elkas and Big Sugar, plus the entire run of 45's the label recently put out, non-LP cuts by Plaskett, Jeremy Fisher, David Myles, Shotgun Jimmy and more.  Wow.

For all the info on getting involved and  giving, go to: 
http://www.herohill.com/2012/08/auction-win-a-complete-new-scotland-catalog-and-help-fight-cancer.htm