Turn It Up - 3/4/2024

Earworms, obsessions, recommendations

We’re back again to start the week with some things we’ve been listening to. David goes first this week, then Charles, and we’ve also included some reading recommendations at the bottom.

Wonder Women of Country – “Another Broken Heart” (single, 2024)

These country wonder women are Kelly Willis, Brennen Leigh and Melissa Carper, and this time out Willis, on rhythm guitar and lead vocal, sounds nearly stunned to find herself suddenly broken hearted. She’s out drowning her misery in some “all smoke and mirrors” barroom, on the lookout for someone similarly afflicted. Leigh’s guitar solo out of the bridge seems to help her with the search while Carper’s bass keeps the three swinging tipsily but upright. Their simple harmonizing through the chords sounds as if they may all get lucky. My new favorite supergroup. –DC

Monaleo – “Don Who Leo” (single, 2024)

Sometimes it just takes a beat that makes me bounce, placed beneath rhymes that delight, and I’m good. Ostensibly, Houston rapper Monaleo is pissed-in-advance here at some guy who may or may not be planning to cheat on her. Tell me if you’ve heard that one before. What’s going to keep this one in rotation for me is the way Monaleo’s playful and surprising end-rhymes keep me laughing: For one run she lands on “album,” “Malcolm,” “talcum,” “outcome,” and “how come,” just for starters. A+. That handclap breakdown near the end makes me smile, too.  –DC

Dehd – “Mood Ring” (single, 2024)

This was manifesting as an earworm for me, its girl-group melodic pep and smudgy wall of sound effortlessly lifting my spirits for a week, before I’d even bothered to figure out the words. Which, being all about the I-can’t-believe-my-dumb-luck discovery that the one you’ve wanted wants you right back: Head dehds Emily Kempf and Jason Balla sing it like a duet. As long as their mood rings match, they sound invincible. –DC

Louis Jordan – “Ration Blues” (single, 1944)

Last month, Beyonce became the first black woman ever to debut at #1 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart. Perhaps you wondered, “woman” and “debut” aside, who was the first black act ever to top a Billboard country countdown? That achievement belongs to… Louis Jordan and His Tympany Five, who—sixty years ago, just last week as it happens—topped what Billboard called its “Most Played Juke Box Folk Records” chart.  This was, at the time, the magazine’s only tally of “hillbilly” recordings, and, as you can see in the image below, “Folk” here was a broad and, for the moment, integrated category that mixed “Hillbilly” music with “Cowboy songs,” so-called “Race” records and spirituals—plus Bing Crosby whose mainstream pop superstardom synthesized all of that and more.  Jump-blues saxman Jordan was a key figure in popular music’s shift from big bands to combos, and “Ration Blues,” a protest about government-imposed sacrifices on the WWII home front, epitomizes his brassy, good-humored style. “Ration Blues” and the rest of his hits proved an important antecedent to rhythm & blues and rock and roll—and his melodies and grown-ass themes are close kin to swingy, blues-based hits favored by so many mid-century “country” stars. “Poh-oh-oh-or me,” Jordan cries, both poking fun at and feeling sorry for his life during wartime. As it turned out, Jordan would have the #1 “Folk Record” a second time later that summer, this time for five weeks, with his immortal “Is You Is or Is You Ain’t (My Baby)”—and that immediately following the King Cole Trio’s also chart-topping “Straighten Up and Fly Right.” At that point, Billboard’s integrated “Folk Records” chart became suddenly segregated. Not sure why… further study required… but I think I know why. –DC

Dan Penn – “Forever Changed” (from The Inside Track on Bobby Purify, 2024)

In 2005, sixties soul star Bobby Purify (a.k.a. Ben Moore) released a wonderful solo album, Better To Have It, that reunited him with some great Memphis and Muscle Shoals players. Most significant was Dan Penn, who produced it, co-wrote its songs, and whose “I’m Your Puppet” was the Purifys’ big hit. As songwriter, producer, and performer, Penn was a key creator of the musical hybrids in what I’ve called “the country-soul triangle.” Penn’s songwriter demos were legendary for their quality, and he adds a chapter to that story with the release of the demos from the Purify project. Best of all is the piano-driven, Charlie Rich-recalling ballad “Forever Changed.” Penn – who co-wrote it with fellow luminaries Carson Whitsett (who provides keyboards) and Bucky Lindsey – delivers the devotional with hushed tenderness and glowing warmth. (There’s a reason why Penn released it on his own Junkyard Junky album two years later.) It’s an intimate showstopper and a rare treat. - CH

Britti – “So Tired” (from Hello, I’m Britti, 2024)

Here’s another throwback that you won’t want to throw back. A new signee to Dan Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound, the Louisiana-based singer-songwriter Britti just released an excellent debut collection of songs that trace connections between pop, R&B, and country from across eras. It’s that too-rare mixture of identifiably “retro” sonic gestures with an artistic impulse that feels new and fresh, a combination largely due to the strength and flexibility of Britti’s vocal and melodic approaches. The kick-off track, “So Tired,” is a moving piece of finger-popping melancholy, with the singer’s breathy resignation carrying her over an arrangement grounded somewhere between Dionne Warwick and The Isley Brothers. Bassist Nick Movshon – who previously played with Amy Winehouse and Wu-Tang Clan – drives “So Tired” forward gently, and Nashville ace Jay Bellerose both keeps and changes the pace on drums. This is a pop gem as crisp and sweet as a spring day. - CH

Kelsey Waldon (feat. S.G. Goodman) – “Hello Stranger” (from There’s Always A Song, 2024)

I wasn’t sure that I needed another version of “Hello Stranger” – the Flatlanders, Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard, the Carolina Chocolate Drops, and others have all done honor to the standard written by A.P. Carter and first recorded by the Carter Family. But Waldon and Goodman sure did prove me wrong. From Waldon’s upcoming album of classic country and bluegrass covers, this “Hello Stranger” is a slow-barnburner with two of our best young artists harmonizing and trading off lyrics with defiant joy. But what really makes this a sure entrant in my “Hello Stranger” Hall of Fame is the instrumental intro, where fiddler Libby Weitnauer invokes the occasion over insistent country-funk. With the curtain raised, Waldon and Goodman move to center stage, Weitnauer weaves in and out of the mix, and we’re off and running all the way through Weitnauer’s whipsawing outro. What a rush – can’t wait for the whole album. - CH

Bruce Hornsby & ymusic (BrhyM) – “The Wild Whaling Life” (from Deep Sea Vents, 2024)

I love how Bruce Hornsby has devoted the post-hits phase of his career to doing weird shit. Not everything on his water-themed collaboration with the young chamber ensemble ymusic is great, but it’s all really interesting. And some of it is fantastic, like the lead-off track about a stalwart whaler. “The Wild Whaling Life” blends oceanic sound effects and multiple song forms with the kind of elegant chorus that brought Hornsby such success in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. Over listing-ship cello from Gabriel Cabezas and darting woodwinds from Alex Sopp, Hornsby bobs around between tones and tempos with the uncertainty of his protagonist and the ease of a curious old pro who hasn’t stopped exploring new currents. - CH

Keith Richards – “I’m Waiting For the Man” (from The Power. of the Heart: A Tribute to Lou Reed, 2024)

From an upcoming Lou Reed tribute, this rumbling dream date is a perfect example of what happens when a wonderfully obvious idea lives up to its promise. With his longtime X-Pensive Winos comrades Ivan Neville and Steve Jordan behind him, Richards blends Reed’s nervy strut with the ramshackle swing that’s been Keith’s trademark in the last several decades. (And for which Jordan, now drumming for the Stones, has always been an expert and amiable counterpart.) Richards stays low to the ground, with a knowing growl that tells the story of what happens when the young punk in the Velvet Underground original is still hanging out in the same place almost sixty years later. Aging disgracefully never sounded so good. - CH

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Reading recommendations:

-John Lingan talks to Rhiannon Giddens, for The Believer

-Jeff Gage on grief and Hurray for the Riff Raff, for Rolling Stone

-Bill Friskics-Warren on the late Roni Stoneman, for The New York Times

-Henry Carrigan rounds up several new and forthcoming music books, for No Depression

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