Turn It Up - 3/31/2025

Earworms, obsessions, recommendations

It’s another week, and we hope everyone’s hanging in there. Here are some songs that are giving us life, helping us find spaces of joy and strength, and we hope they do the same for you. Keep on keepin’ on. No Fences!

Annie and the Caldwells — “I Made It” (from Can’t Lose My (Soul), 2025)

Fifty years after her work as a teenager with gospel group the Staples Jr. Singers (so named for their sonic resemblance to the legendary artists), Mississippi singer Annie Brown Caldwell releases her debut album, accompanied by her two adult daughters. It’s a powerful collection, marked by the circling power of the Caldwell singers and the popping arrangements that support them. For me, “I Made It” is the highlight, especially because of its deep interpolation of the Gap Band’s “You Dropped a Bomb on Me,” which reveals the blurry (or nonexistent) line between the funky and the sacred as Caldwell and her daughters give praise to a God who brought them through the wilderness. Pure dynamite. – CH

Lance Cowan — “One More Chance” (from Against the Grain, 2025)

After thirty years as a respected music publicist, Lance Cowan has revealed himself to also be a talented songwriter and performer on two fine solo albums. Last year’s “So Far, So Good” is still in my rotation, and “One More Chance” is likely to end up right beside it. Cowan’s voice favorably recalls the honey-sweet side of Jeff Hanna or Vince Gill, so it makes sense that this kind of aching ballad would be one of his best modes. He’s ably assisted by a group of Nashville pros who work an easy mid-tempo groove as the song swoons across its timeless message of regret. Cowan has been writing and workshopping songs for as long as he’s been in Nashville, and you can tell from both the precise songcraft and the familiarity of his singing. The new arrival of an old pro – I hope Cowan keeps it coming. – CH

I’m With Her — “Find My Way to You” (from Wild and Clear and Blue, 2025)

Folk-bluegrass supergroup I’m With Her is returning with a new album soon, and –if “Find My Way To You” is any occasion – it’s going to be something else. “Find My Way To You” manages to pull off the neat trick of sounding at certain points like each of the group’s inestimably talented three members, Aoife O’Donovan, Sarah Jarosz, and Sara Watkins, weaving together their distinct approaches into a song that builds from folk hush to bluegrass jubilation where the trio join in close harmony on a love song that nudges up against the line of obsession. With Watkins’ fiddle soaring above Jarosz’ mandolin and O’Donovan’s guitar, “Find My Way To You” builds into the highest of lonesome sounds in a bridge (or is it chorus?) that rings across the mountains. I can’t stop playing this. – CH

Kentucky Gentlemen — “Made for Movin’ On” (from Rhinestone Revolution, 2025)

“I’ve never made friends with fences,” sings Brandon Campbell at the beginning of the new single from the exciting young Black Opry-associated duo the Kentucky Gentlemen. We obviously approve that message, as well as approving the rest of this brooding meditation on the ramblin’ life that has been a core country-music topic since the very beginning. The twin-brother Gentlemen come by their rich harmonies naturally, with brother Derek Campbell supporting and responding across the track, and they find perhaps their best setting yet with the track’s restless, big-sky production. Their debut full-length album is imminent, and that’s cause for celebration. – CH

Terry Manning — “I Am the Cosmos” (live) (from Playin’ in Elvis’ House, 2019)

Musician, producer, and engineer Terry Manning died last week. In a career spanning several decades, the Texan-born Manning worked with artists across genres and made a particular impact in Memphis, where he became a part of production teams at Stax and Ardent Studios in the fertile 1970s. Later, he took over Compass Point Studios in the Bahamas, where his credit can be found on pop stars and rock heroes into the 21^st century. He also made several records of his own, including the mind-blowing Home Sweet Home in early 1970 (which feature early incorporations of synth-based electronics), and – in 2019 – the live Playin’ at Elvis’ House, a live album recorded at Elvis Presley’s home on Audubon Drive. I had some involvement with this event (that’s me at the beginning, in fact, introducing Manning before his first song), and it was a pleasure to hear this old pro run through a bunch of songs that either inspired him or in which he participated. The whole thing’s a garage-rock blast, but I’m especially fond of his take on Chris Bell’s “I Am the Cosmos,” both for its ripped-throat, horn-inflected intensity and the sad, mildly self-deprecating story that Manning tells beforehand. A professional with a remarkable track record, a stalwart believer in the rock-and-soul from Memphis and elsewhere, and a very nice guy whose company I was glad to keep for a little while. – CH

Big Freedia – “Take My Hand” (single, 2025)

Reviewing this first single from the bounce queen’s forthcoming gospel project in his “Queer Jams” column for Billboard, Stephen Daw wrote: “In a time where the concept of Christianity is being wielded as a cudgel by a nefarious group of bigots wishing to strip people of their fundamental rights and freedoms, Big Freedia is here to offer a rebellious and joyful alternative.” As Freedia herself puts it in “Take My Hand,” her riff on Thomas Dorsey’s masterpiece: “Calling all my Divas and my non-believers… My house, your house… East-West, up North, down South / Come to the Queendom, you got the freedom.” No fences, and Amen! – DC

The Headhunters – “God Make Me Funky” (from Paul Weller Presents: That Sweet, Sweet Music, 2025)

The Headhunters began as Herbie Hancock’s jazz-funk-rock backing band for a few albums in the early 1970s. Though still produced by Hancock, “God Make Me Funky” was the lead cut to the first album that the Headhunters (now rendered as all one word) released on their own, Survival of the Fittest. I thought of it this week because it’s also the lead cut to a great new various artists collection from Ace Records, curated by Paul Weller, titled That Sweet, Sweet Music. Lasting nearly ten mind-expanding minutes and enduring across a half-century now as a frequent hip hop sample, the song features slinky electric guitar lines born again as thrilling feedback, a sermon that gives way to noisy dance and back again, our weird funky differences revealed as God-given gifts if only we’ll embrace them as such. No fences. Bonus: That’s the Pointer Sisters on backing vocals. – DC

Eddie and Martha Adcock with Tom Gray and Friends – “Nightwalk” (from Many a Mile, 2011)

“Newgrass,” critic John Morthland observed, “begins with the Country Gentlemen.” Much of the group’s progressive spark can be attributed to banjo player Eddie Adcock, who died last week at 86. For one thing, when Gentlemen John Duffy and Charlie Waller pushed Adcock to join the group, he pushed back by insisting only if they pushed in new directions, forgoing the Monroe and Stanley songbooks to write their own songs and to cover folk songs, new and old. His musicianship was new as well, bending strings, adapting Merle Travis’ thumb-style guitar picking to the banjo (as a younger man, he’d been a rockabilly for a second), and adding his baritone to the group’s folk-rockish trio blend. After a dozen or so years with the Gentlemen, he had a long and varied career, including briefly leading a country-rock outfit called Clinton Special, starting the progressive bluegrass outfit II Generation, and releasing solo albums for both banjo and guitar as well as duet projects with his wife, the guitarist Martha Adcock (nee Hearon). One of Adcock’s signature tunes was the banjo number “Nightwalk,” which he wrote in his teens and, according to Bob Peelstrom of Banjo Newsletter, “seems to have the distinction of being the first known minor-key, minor-tuning instrumental in bluegrass music.” He cut the tune with the Gentlemen, in 1963, in a version that tears along like it should’ve been titled “Nightsprint.” The version Eddie and Martha recorded in 2011, with former Country Gentlemen bassist Tom Gray playing the jazz-pop kick off, feels more like its name, dark and lonely and a little blue. Eddie’s banjo has its collar up against the wind, worrying some old trouble or other and heading home. R.I.P. Eddie Adcock. – DC

Kris Kristofferson with Gillian Welch and David Rawlings – “The Ballad of Ira Hayes” (from Look Again to the Wind: Johnny Cash’s Bitter Tears Revisited, 2014)

Earlier this month, an executive order from Donald Trump called for the removal of all content promoting diversity, equity and inclusion from the Department of Defense’s website. Thousands of pages were wiped away, including those devoted to the military contributions of Jackie Robinson and the heralded Navajo code talkers of World War II. Many of the pages have apparently since been reinstated, but one remaining deletion caught my attention: Ira Hayes, the Pima American who helped raise the flag in that iconic photograph at Iowa Jima. Perhaps like you, I first learned about Hayes while singing along to Johnny Cash’s “The Ballad of Ira Hayes,” about his heroism and then about how Hayes’ was shunned and forgotten. The song was written by Peter LaFarge and had already been recorded in versions by LaFarge and Pete Seeger before Cash recorded it as part of his 1964 album, Bitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian. The single eventually became a No. 3 country hit, but at first, in a situation eerily echoing Hayes’ tragic tale, it was shunned by radio. Pissed, Cash took out a full-page ad in Billboard, calling out the cowardice and prejudice of DJs and program directors.” “[S]o many stations are afraid of Ira Hayes. Just one question: WHY?” (You can read Cash’s entire letter below.) We knew the answer to Cash’s question then, and we know the reason now behind attempts to eliminate any histories celebrating Americans of color. You probably already know Cash’s recording of the song, so I thought instead I’d share a later version from a 2011 Bitter Tears tribute album. Kris Kristofferson, aided by Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, really rises to the occasion here, with an appropriately ragged and bitter performance of the song about the hero Ira Hayes and, heard from today, his country’s continued betrayal. – DC

Recommended reading:

-Barry Mazor on the new album from Alison Krauss and Union Station, for The Wall Street Journal

-Bill Friskics-Warren on Eddie Adcock, for The New York Times

-Robert Christgau on the documentary Sly Lives! (AKA The Burden of Black Genius), for And It Don’t Stop

-Daniel Bromfield on The Beatles’ Live! at the Star-Club in Hamburg, Germany; 1962, for Pitchfork

-Rev. Danté Stewart on being Black in Trump’s America, for Broadview

-Elizabeth Nelson talks to Judy Collins, for Stereogum

-Jewly Hight profiles Angie K., for WNXP.org

-Ann Powers on Lucy Dacus, for NPR

-Jonathan Bernstein talks to Rhiannon Giddens, for Rolling Stone

-James Factora profiles Lucy Dacus, for Them

-John Beifuss on the potential impact of Trump funding cuts on museums and libraries in Memphis, for Memphis Commercial Appeal

(from Billboard 8/22/1964)

If you like what you’re reading here, please think of subscribing to No Fences Review! It’s free for now, although we will be adding a paid tier with exclusive content soon. Also, if you’d like to support our work now, you can hit the blue “Pledge” button on the top-right of your screen to pledge your support now, at either monthly, yearly, or founding-member rates. You’ll be billed when we add the paid option. Thanks!