The Musical Box

townes van zandt: "live at the old quarter, houston, texas"

About a quarter of the way through Live at the Old Quarter, Houston, Texas, the folkish surrealism of Townes Van Zandt’s music begins to take hold. The tune is Fraternity Blues, the mere theme of which seems freakish. Just imaging one of Lone Star country’s most distinctive songsmiths within the conformist confines of a fraternity is pretty outrageous. But within the song’s talking blues narration, Van Zandt displays a disarming sense of cunning and a matter-of-fact storytelling demeanor, traits that have always underscored the very human (albeit, the very darkly human) side of his music.

“I’m no trouble causer,” he admits. “You want good friends? They’re gonna cost you.”

With that Live at the Old Quarter begins a new Americana life. The performances, all solo and beautifully imperfect, were cut at a watering hole located in, according to the liner notes, “the seedy side of downtown Houston.” The album itself was first issued in 1977 and has floated in and out of print ever since. This new double-disc edition appeared this summer on Fat Possum, the primal roots music label that began a massive reissue campaign of Van Zandt’s recordings last year.

Simply put, Live at the Old Quarter, is the one Van Zandt album everyone must own. It’s contain his best songs (from the rollicking Talking Thunderbird Blues to the ultra stark Kathleen) illuminated with unadorned, underplayed performance detail.

Take White Freight Liner Blues, for instance. It’s been covered a ga-zillion times, usually as a smartly paced shuffle with progressive country leanings. Here, Van Zandt makes his creation seem as plaintive as a Hank Williams chestnut. When he sings “going out on the highway, listen to them big trucks whine,” the voice cracks, almost into a yodel. It’s an alarm that sets you up for a song that, despite its easygoing pace, is consumed with escape and death.

The riches are vast here. Mr. Mudd & Mr. Gold summons a suitable sense of card table drama while Van Zandt almost shyly remarks before If I Needed You about how Doc Watson’s rendition of the tune “really blew my mind.” But Live at the Old Quarter’s greatest strength is the emotional breadth of its material. Since it is essentially a solo performance anthology of the songwriter’s best work, you witness all of the narrative high wire act without any aid of a safety net.

No Place to Fall proves to be exquisitely vulnerable, To Live is to Fly is pure wondrous fancy, a wiry cover of Cocaine Blues is restlessly wry and the Bo Diddley staple Who Do You Love becomes a mini percussive hoedown. And when it comes to mining the sheer human desperation of his stories, nothing remains more stirring, sad and unsettling than Live at the Old Quarter’s unsentimental reading of Tecumseh Valley. That’s when the album’s miscellaneous barroom ambience – the clinking glasses, the deliriously out-of-time audience clap-a-longs – evaporates. For four and a half minutes, it’s as if there is no one else in the room.

Live at Old Quarter has been regularly likened by fans and critics alike to such groundbreaking country concert albums as Johnny Cash at San Quentin. No argument here. My old cassette recording of the former wore out long ago after years of dashboard listening. Last weekend, during a road trip to see friends in Nashville, this new CD version served as a soundtrack. And as the Bluegrass Parkway gave way to I-65 South, right as those big trucks began to whine, Van Zandt, in all his unadorned drama and glory, was alive again.

jeff coffin will fill in for saxophonist leroi moore in the dave matthews band this summer.

How fitting that Jeff Coffin will find himself in a downtown Louisville baseball park tonight. After all, the saxophonist is proving to be rock ‘n’ roll’s top pinch hitter of the summer.

When LeRoi Moore, longtime sax man for the Dave Matthews Band, was seriously injured in an all-terrain vehicle accident in late June, Coffin was given the call. Familiar to the Matthews team through his decade-long work with Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, which frequently opened concerts for the band, Coffin was asked to fill in for the rest of what turned out a very full DMB performance year.

Though he immediately accepted the gig, considerable calendar juggling had to be done. There was promotion work on deck for a new album by Coffin’s Mu’tet band called Mutopia, which was due out in only two weeks. There were also high profile Flecktones performances in Philadelphia and Boston with the groundbreaking fusion band Return to Forever to consider. While clinics and big band performances planned for Australia this month had to be scrapped, Coffin seems to have life as a three band man in order.

“It turned into a crazy summer all of a sudden,” Coffin said. “In other words, I got called on a Monday and was playing with the Dave Matthews Band on a Tuesday night. The challenge, then, that exists for me is to really be able to jump into their river and serve their music while retaining who I am.

“I’m sure this is strange for them also. LeRoi has been with them since their very beginning.”

Coffin credits trumpeter Rashawn Ross, a touring member of DMB since 2005, for helping ease the adjustment to touring life with the hugely successful jam band.

“He has really been a Godsend, man. He’s such a patient teacher. He has shown me the parts for the songs, helped me sketch stuff out. A lot of times, he will sing me a part and four bars later we’re playing it. I’m really honored to be part of all this.”

The only interruption on the DMB tour will be the Flecktones dates next week with Return to Forever. For Coffin (and especially Fleck), the idea of playing with RTF – keyboardist Chick Corea, bassist Stanley Clarke, guitarist Al DiMeola and drummer Lenny White – means rubbing shoulders that with strong formative influences that helped shape the saxophonist’s music.

 ”All of us in the Flecktones grew up listening to their music,” Coffin said of RTF. “Those guys helped open a lot of doors for us. They opened up musical possibilities that are still being explored today. So this is going to be a thrill, man. Bela is about out of his skin, he’s so excited. He’s like a little kid.”

The Flecktones will release a holiday album called Jingle All the Way before touring South America and Hawaii in November. The band is also scheduled to play the Brown Theatre in Louisville on Dec. 6. (Tickets go on sale Aug. 15.)

Beyond the lands of Matthews and Fleck, though, sits a place called Mutopia. It’s an enticing little paradise with a mix of fusion, bop, world music, modern grooves and pure jazz adventure that defines a musical approach the saxophonist adopts when he sits in the pilot’s seat.

Coffin cut Mutopia in mid December 2006, roughly a week after his Mu’tet  – keyboardist Kofi Burbridge (of the The Derek Trucks Band), bassist Felix Pastorius (son of iconic bass guitarist Jaco Pastorius) and drummer Roy “Futureman” Wooten (Coffin’s longtime Flecktones mate) – introduced the album’s music during a concert at The Dame.

But things do indeed mutate. During the Dame show, One In,One Out was essentially a bop joyride. On Mutopia, the swing gets a modern bounce with turntable turns by Nashville’s Black Cat Sylvester. The results recall the vintage Blue Note albums of soul sax stylist Lou Donaldson, but with a multi-generational groove.

“To me, the record really exemplifies the idea behind the Mu’tet,” Coffin said. “It comes from the word ‘mutation,’ which reflects my belief that music always has to be changing, morphing and mutating to be alive.”

Dave Matthews Band and Willie Nelson perform at 7 p.m. Aug. 1 at Slugger Field, 401 East Main St. in Louisville. $55, $65. Call (859) 281-6644.

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. 

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.