The Musical Box

When a scan of the credits to Emmylou Harris’ typically gorgeous All I Intended to Be reveals the return of veteran producer (and one time husband) Brian Ahern, one might be braced for a second coming of cosmic country music. After all, Harris and Ahern began a string of 11 progressively minded country albums for Warner Brothers with a pair of 1975 triumphs, Pieces of the Sky and Elite Hotel.

Harris’ music was initially seeded with the inspiration of her early ‘70s mentor, Gram Parsons. No wonder much of it sounded like a cross between Buck Owens and Chuck Berry. By the late ‘70s, near the end of the collaborative streak with Ahern, Harris’ Americana scope widened. 1979’s extraordinary roots music exploration, Roses in the Snow, typlified the grassy growth.

There are echoes of that music on All I Intended to Be. But at age 61, Harris is hardly looking back. The electric ambience that began to pervade her music on 1995’s Daniel Lanois-produced Wrecking Ball, subsequent touring with guitarist and fellow song scribe Buddy Miller and an appreciation for a new generation of artists (Patty Griffin being a notable member) have made her music more stylistically expansive than ever.

That brings us to the cross-generational crossroads of All I Intended to Be. By the time the album winds its way to Sailing Round the Room, there is a suggestion of the delicacy and clarity of Harris’ country past. But listen as her voice rises against a chorus of echoing guitar (from Ahern) and plaintive harmonies (from longtime pals Kate and Anna McGarrigle, who wrote the tune with Harris) as steel guitar and accordion color the corners. There is a hint of country classicism here. But the matriarchal grace that comes with just about any piece of music Harris comes in contact with these days wins out. Couple that with the song’s immovable faith (”I won’t leave the world behind me; look around and you will find me”) and you have a cumulative sound for the singer. It collects country accents of the past, adds a touch of ambient mystery and moves on.

Operating from a seemingly different plateau is Kern River, possibly the most emotively potent and painfully neglected song ever penned by Merle Haggard. A song of loss, death, regret and more maladjusted faith, Harris brings Kern River to life with help from guitarist/vocalist John Starling and dobroist/vocalist Mike Auldridge (both alumni of The Seldom Scene). The tune is delivered almost as a hymn with lovely acoustic expression that rises above a powerfully dark narrative flow.

Oh, and there so many more delights. Starling serves as a duet partner for the warhorse Billy Joe Shaver gem Old Five and Dimers Like Me (which most effectively recalls the early Harris/Ahern albums) while Tracy Chapman’s All That You Have is Your Soul embraces the earthy soul and worldly knowing (”hunger only for a taste of justice, hunger only for a world of truth”) that only sound fully credible when a voice as understated and learned as Harris’ is at the helm.

Bridging multiple corners of a vast and diverse career, All I Intended to Be sings with a cohesive, adult and richly emotive musical identity that is Emmylou through and through.

“Hey, I love the lighting,” remarked Dry Branch Fire Squad chief Ron Thomason, during a spirited Sunday morning gospel set that closed out the 35^th Festival of the Bluegrass at the Kentucky Horse Park. Chances are the crowd did, too - especially since that the glow that greeted the festival’s Friday night performances came shooting out the sky with barrels of thunder and buckets of rain

But on Sunday morning, with much of the festival site already in various states of dismantlement, Thomason and crew played not on the mainstage area where it performed on Saturday, but in a small adjacent tent. The lighting, powered as it was on Friday by ol’ Mother Nature herself, proved far more complimentary to the Dry Branch’s highly unspoiled music.

Rooted heavily in pre-bluegrass country and mountain gospel, Thomason presided over string music that reflected a light, antique feel that never seemed austere. When the full quartet engaged in the a capella Over in the Gloryland - intended more as an impromptu soundcheck than a performance - the harmonies were relaxed, homey and thoroughly unforced. Ditto for Thomason’s mandolin runs during Poor Orphan Child, where the string navigation was speedy enough to satisfy Bill Monroe-bred fans without being unduly showy.

There were all kinds of other unvarnished, old world touches to the set, as well. Thomason’s clawhammer banjo stabs blended neatly with Tom Boyd’s wiry dobro colors on the heaven-bound 50 Miles of Elbow Room. There was also a hearty but understated nod to Thomason’s Virginia heritage and the a capella inspiration of the Chestnut Grove Quartet in the patiently paced group harmonies of Church by the Road.

Of course, Thomason, a master storyteller on any occasion, used the setting for a little worldly sermonizing. He regaled in a tale of redneck culture in Sausalito, California (where cars on blocks in front yards are Ferraris) but gently denounced televangelists that preach hate. Thomason even took himself to task for hating those that hate. “I don’t know if I could whip Robert Tilton,” he said. “But I’d sure like to punch him.”

The set, and the festival, ended with the gospel staple Green Pastures and an unsentimental but honestly moving Thomason story about a show horse he cared for after its retirement and how the extent of the song’s spiritual depth wasn’t revealed until after the animal’s death.

“To this day, I’ve never met an Equine-American I didn’t like.” Amen to that.

(above, Dry Branch Fire Squad: guitarist Brian Aldridge, bassist Dan Russell, banjoist/dobroist Tom Boyd, mandolinist/guitarist/banjoist/vocalist Ron Thomason)

The story that inevitably takes the most time for me to compose every year is also the one that requires the least amount of actual writing.

I refer here to our annual Summer Concert Guide, which ran in yesterday’s Arts + Life section. It’s a sprawling, beast of a piece that undoubtedly (but quite unintentionally) gave my editors and their design staff migraines when it came to coming up with ways of presenting the 200 shows listed in as reader/user friendly a format as possible.

That’s because it’s basically a glorified calendar designed to include as many confirmed concerts as we can find that will take place within a two hour drive of Lexington. I neglected to comment, though, that with the skyrocketing cost of concert tickets, not mention the gas it might require to get to the venue, an entire summer vacation budget can be blown in a single evening. But we like to think of ourselves as optimists around here.

I usually start work on the beast in March. While it’s hardly a brain teaser of a project, the ol’ noggin tends to lumber after an hour or so of typing in names, times and ticket prices. Once the beast is completed, I always have renewed respect for the Herald-Leader’s calendar crew who do this sort of duty on a daily basis.

It’s also a bit of a self-defeating enterprise, sad to say. You work to keep the guide as updated as possible. Then, almost from the instant you send the beast out to the world, it becomes obsolete. On Friday, the day the guide went to print, regional shows by moe., 3 Doors Down and Medeski Martin & Wood were announced. More will come this week. And so on and so on.

But we caught as much of the summer season as we could in the time we had to catch it. And for something as fleeting as summer itself, you can never hope to do more.

Click here to view the beastly and now frozen Summer Concert Guide for 2008.

(above, Tom Petty, who performs with Steve Winwood at Riverbend in Cincinnati in July 8.)

Just a reminder that if your Memorial Day weekend is still one cookout away from being complete, then head over to CD Central at 377 S. Limestone where Steve Baron and crew will serve up another holiday of free music, cheap eats and a few bargains on assorted musical goodies.

As to the former, the lineup is thus:

Noon: Up first is the homegrown indie folk/pop of The Rainjunkies. Sparse but spacious melodies with a modest country strut and the similarly light vocal fabric of singer Abby Lane make up the band’s attractive, atmospheric Americana mix.

1 p.m.: Things get electric with the big jangly guitars and very Morrissey-like vocal melodrama that make up the music of fellow localites Varsovia. Touches of reverb and percussive frenzy flesh out the band’s overall ‘80s ambience.

2 p.m.: Time to wake up the neighbors with Lexington hardcore band Through Trials. The quintet sports a massively crunchy sound, lyrics that are as positive as the music is pensive and, if you take a peak at its MySpace page, a record label logo to die for.

3 p.m. - The lone out-of-town guest is 2 Foot Yard, a bi-coastal trio made up of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum/Tin Hat Trio violinist/vocalist Carla Kihlstedt, Charming Hostess/Vienna Teng cellist Marika Hughes and drummer Shahzad Ismaily. The latter will be featured next month on the much anticipated (by me, at least) debut disc from Marc Ribot’s monster funk trio Ceramic Dog.

4 p.m. - Winding things up is The Middle Fork, an inventive local trio that blends avant-funk, metal-charged guitar blasts, a generous dose of unobvious pop and a wicked sense of humor.

Call (859) 233-3472 for more information.

Last’s week off-hours listening included…

T Bone Burnett: Tooth of Crime - Some of the most lavishly decadent music this side of Tom Waits, Tooth of Crime sets free songs Burnett penned for a Sam Shepard play of the same name nearly 12 years ago. Accompanied by a “torture chamber orchestra” that includes guitar renegade Marc Ribot and ex-wife Sam Phillips, the album boasts epic pop sweeps (Kill Zone) and percussive doomsday reveries (Here Come the Philistines).

Brad Mehldau Trio: Live - The only thing obvious about this two-disc set cut in October 2006 at New York’s fabled Village Vanguard is the album title. Captured in a seemingly less pensive mood than usual, pianist Mehldau presents the Soundgarden hit Black Hole Sun with a stride lyrical enough to make you think Vince Guaraldi was at the keys. Similarly, a nearly 15 minute take on John Coltrane’s Countdown emphasizes the trio’s keen swing.

Jefferson Airplane: Jefferson Airplane at the Family Dog - The latest in a series of archival concert recordings, Family Dog places the Airplane on home turf in San Francisco in September 1969. The music is scrappy and dark, with Volunteers material sounding righteously ragged. But the jams that open and close the album, the latter of which brings Jerry Garcia to the fold to foil with Jorma Kaukonen, are way, way cool.

Allan Holdsworth: All Night Wrong - An extraordinary but unflashy guitarist with a solid fusion sound and modest prog rock leanings, Holdsworth has been largely invisible in recent years save for the this efficient sounding concert recording from 2002 cut with two longtime pals: bassist Jimmy Johnson and one-time Frank Zappa drummer Chad Whackerman. The guitar tone is wiry, elastic, rockish and wily as all get out.

Larry Coryell: Private Concert - An altogether different guitar record by another fusion giant caught in a solo acoustic mood. Despite the title, this is a studio date. But the sense of intimacy is strong, from the opening, bluesy gusts of Sonny Rollins’ Sonnymoon for Two to the neatly crafted, multi-tracked “duets” Coryell plays with himself on a suitably warm sounding Hot House and a summery take on Dizzy Gillespie’s Brother K. A delight.

A few years ago, I was invited by the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame to sit in on a committee that reviewed potential inductees for its 2006 ceremony.

As everyone in the room represented varying degrees of musical interest and intent, our choices purposely ran all over the stylistic map, from obvious country and bluegrass celebrities to less heralded names from the worlds of jazz and theatre.

Curiously, one name popped up on everyone’s list: Dottie Rambo. The Madisonville native was a multi-generational voice of Southern gospel that also possessed an expansive and often fearless view of country music

How fearless? Well, these ears were largely unfamiliar with the literally thousands of songs she wrote that were subsequently covered by such varied artists as Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Porter Wagoner, Charlie Louvin, Bill Monroe, Andrae Couch and dozens of others. It took newer covers of her music by Alison Krauss with the Cox Family and Rhonda Vincent to make her lasting influence more personally visible.

My introduction to Rambo came by way of an extraordinary 1974 country-roots solo album by Allman Brothers Band guitarist Dickey Betts (who went by Richard Betts at the time). Titled Highway Call, the recording favored not Rambo’s songwriting, but her sterling singing alongside then-husband Buck and daughter Reba.

Hearing the Rambos harmonize with unspoiled country gospel cheer alongside Betts on guitar and dobro and the equally joyous piano playing of Chuck Leavell (now a co-hort of the Rolling Stones) was a wake-up call to then-teenaged ears that thought a Betts solo session would offer little more than a mild variation on the Allmans’ signature Southern rock recipe.

A Grammy winning artist, Rambo survived health difficulties and severe, almost soap opera-ish upheavels in her personal and business life. Last weekend, as we all know now, Rambo died in a bus accident at the age of 74 while enroute to a Mother’s Day concert in Texas.

Rambo’s veteran fans can likely reel off scores of appropriate song titles that would do a remembrance of her career proud. I can’t help but recommend Highway Call, which was reissued on CD in 2001.

Betts obviously dominates the album. But within its grooves, you hear a Kentucky voice full of country faith that never falters. 

Who said there is nothing to do in Lexington on a Monday night? Not the good folks at the WoodSongs Old-Time Radio Hour, that’s for sure. They’ve got a beaut of a show on tap to tape tonight at the Kentucky Theatre: a double Americana bill featuring singer/songwriters James McMurtry (above) and Justin Townes Earle.

McMcMurty has long displayed a great flair for the narrative. And why not? He’s the son of celebrated Western novelist and screenwriter Larry McMurtry. But over the past two decades, James has issued one extraordinary set of worldly themed rural life snapshots after another. The political slant of his music has become increasingly pointed, as well.

A regular visitor to Lexington over the years (he’s played The Dame, High on Rose and Lynagh’s Music Club several times), tonight marks his first local performance since the release of what just might stand as his finest album, Just Us Kids. Rather than repeating myself ad nauseum, I’ll refer you to the critic’s pick 15 entry of The Musical Box for a full review. Let’s just say the record is a gem, one of the best so far in 2008, for sure. And that only ups the anticipation of tonight’s show, which will likely be devoted to the new songs. 

Earle (left), of course, is the son of Americana “hard core troubadour” Steve Earle. But a listen to The Good Life, the younger Earle’s debut album on the indie insurgent country label Bloodshot, reflects a life less amplified. There’s no Lone Star drawl to Justin’s singing, no brazen electric overtures, just a deep folky tenor with a flair for stark, conversational tales (like Lone Pine Hill and Far Away in Another Town, which recalls the late Townes Van Zandt, who Earle is partially named for), a hearty groove (the neo-Jamaican South Georgia Sugar Babe) and traditional country elegance (the Ernest Tubb-flavored Ain’t Glad I’m Leaving).

If you miss Earle this time around, be patient. He will be back for a full set this fall at the Christ the King Okotoberfest. Keep Sept. 20 open.

James McMurtry and Justin Townes Earle perform at 7 tonight for the WoodSongs Old-Time Radio Hour at the Kentucky Theatre, 214 E. Main. Tickets are $10. For reservations, call (859) 252-8888.

Among the off-the-clock listening this week: 

Joe Ely and Joel Guzman: Live Cactus! - Direct from the Cactus Café in Austin, Tx. is this serving of spicy acoustic duets between master Texas songsmith/raconteur Ely and accordion ace Guzman. In this setting, Because of the Wind and Letter to Laredo shine so brightly you can almost feel the West Texas sun beating down on your back.

Otis Redding: Otis Blue/Otis Redding Sings Soul - A new two-disc version of the soul gem that shook the world in 1965. Everything here is killer: the two live versions of Respect, the regal reworkings of My Girl and Rock Me Baby and the voice that lights up Down in the Valley. Oh, yes. There’s also I’ve Been Loving You Too Long. A classic.  

Amon Duul II: Tanz der Lemminge - It originally took two vinyl albums in 1971 to cover the German band’s spacey blasts of prog-rock, psychedelic folk, Zappa-esque frenzy, moody atmospherics and good ol’ Munich boogie. Reissued as a single 2006 CD, Tanz today sounds reflective, pensive, trippy and exquisitely dated. 

Jonny Greenwood: There Will Be Blood - Though released almost simultaneously last winter with the newest album by guitarist Greenwood’s other band, Radiohead,  I find myself listening to this more. Admittedly, there is nothing rock ‘n’ roll about There Will Be Blood. But its icy, strident, chamber-style string works are every bit as emotive. 

Santana: Welcome - The 1973 album that effectively killed the commercial appeal of the first phase of Santana’s career. But the deep percussive spiritualism of Mother Africa, the keyboard hymn Going Home and a mind-blowing, 13-minute guitar summit with John McLaughlin highlight one of Santana’s most audacious works. Reissued in 2003.

When she stepped onstage last night at the Kentucky Theatre in a glittery black dress and matching eyeglasses, Susan Tedeschi resembled less the blues/soul stylist she is championed as and more like a Strat-slinging Tina Fey.

But in very short order, the two-hour performance laid out, in ways that regularly seemed very unplanned, the vastness of Tedeschi’s roots music command and the keenness of her performance intuition.

In purely technical terms, the show was something of landmine that kept exploding at often inopportune times.

There was the blast of feedback that instantly punctured the introductory cool of Just Won’t Burn, a glitch that Tedeschi grandly rode out by letting the song’s momentum build and boil over with a guitar solo full of patient, bold lyricism. There were also the forgotten lyrics to Bob Dylan’s Lord Protect My Child, which, despite a resilient gospel mood established by Tedeschi and her sharp backup quartet, proved less salvageable.

But the most severe, unexpected and ultimately rewarding moment came when Tedeschi informed the crowd of the death that afternoon of Sean Costello. The blues singer/guitarist’s 29^th birthday would have been today.

As a tribute, she turned not to the bittersweet, but to a rollicking, roadhouse-worthy reading of Junior Wells’ Little by Little, which Tedeschi and Costello recorded together on her breakthrough Just Won’t Burn album a decade ago.

The tune’s emotive immediacy unraveled not as a requiem, but as a celebration that was every bit was joyous as a cover of Stevie Wonder’s Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever and as soulful as a new original called Revolutionize Yourself, both of which followed later in the set.

Sure, there were misfires early on. But Little by Little was a stunner that Tedeschi rode gallantly to the finish line.

Enforcing the fact that Just Us Kids is not kids stuff, singer/scribe James McMurtry sings an unendingly bleak story about crackheads living figuratively and literally in the middle of nowhere. Titled Fire Line Road, it’s sung from a female’s perspective - a neat trick since McMurtry’s clenched mumble sounds like a Texan version of Lou Reed. But there is such a sad, universal strain to the song that gender isn’t at all an issue. In the end, one of the addicts (”she ain’t as big as a minute, just skin on bone”) is numb to everything, even to the pain that has engulfed her.

As usual, McMurtry is among the keenest of literary songsmiths. For all the human detail of his songs, he doesn’t sentimentalize. The stories spiral down dark and often rural paths without coercion. Sometimes there’s a sense of black whimsy to his songs, as in the solitude that sweeps in like storm clouds on Hurricane Party (”there’s no one to talk to when the lines go down”). In other instances, like the roadhouse savvy Freeway View, desperation and lingering desire cloud a loner’s past and future (”I ain’t ever coming back to you; or then again, I might”).

McMurtry is on a roll with these songs. Aided by brisk electric support and some especially cool guests - like guitarist Jon Dee Graham, who fans the flames on Fire Line Road - Just Us Kids has more the feel of a rock ‘n’ roll record than the sort of folkie requiem one might expect from its heavily narrative song structures and thoroughly human storylines.

All told, though, you would have look back at the records John Prine cut in the ‘70s to find a songwriter who could pen tunes of such great emotive clarity and economy. The language McMurtry employs is detailed but simple. The music he draws upon is lean but arresting. McMurtry also doesn’t wring undue drama out of these songs as he sings them. His delivery, as usual, is understated. Almost distant.

That, of course, only enhances the smalltown restlessness that mutates into a lifelong dream of escape in Just Us Kids‘ title tune. First, the youthful protagonist says all he needs is a driver’s license to ”color me gone.” Years later, he promises he will bolt as soon as his divorce is finalized. In the last verse, escape is at hand once his own kid graduates (from what, we aren’t told). In the end, the pipedreams pile up as the “kids” spend life “watching their long hair turning grey.”

But then escape isn’t any prettier when it’s actually seized upon. In Ruby and Carlos, a romance is viewed fully in the past tense. Ruby works in a sheep camp with a busted hip, Carlos is a Gulf War vet (”the first Gulf War,” McMurtry specifies) playing dead end gigs as a Nashville drummer while a mystery sickness takes hold. “They don’t know why or they just won’t say,” McMurtry sings. “They don’t talk much down at the VA.”

Just Us Kids takes a political turn on God Bless America, a rockish, Warren Zevon-like requiem that reminds Green-thinking optimists of what it takes to fuel war, industry and modern life: “That thing don’t run on French fry grease. That thing don’t run on love and peace.” Cheney’s Toy is even grimier in the war report it issues: “We don’t need to know the answers. Long as we’re safe, just hit your marks and say your lines.”

With that kind of power in charge, life in a sheep camp almost sounds charming.

James McMurtry and Justin Townes Earle perform at 7 p.m. April 28 for the WoodSongs Old-Time Radio Hour at the Kentucky Theatre. Tickets are $10. Call (859) 252-8888.