Turn It Up - 9/18/2023
Earworms, obsessions, recommendations
We’re back with another roundup of what we’ve been cranking on repeat lately. Charles goes first, then David, followed as always by some reading recommendations.
Maren Morris – “The Tree” (from The Bridge, 2023)
Maren Morris is not ready to make nice. On “The Tree,” she declares her independence from a country mainstream that has mistreated and alienated her. I love lots about it, from lyrics like “I’m done filling a cup with a hole in the bottom” to the way that the verse’s sparse groove builds to a crashing, hand-clapping chorus. But what strikes me most about “The Tree” is its reaffirmation of what a great singer Morris is, and how well her songwriting and record-making spotlight those gifts. Morris uses her tonal and textural range to emphasize the song’s commitment to self-definition and call to build a more just community. And all of this in service of a hook that should – but won’t – rule country radio. She’s an essential voice in so many ways, one whom we’d all do well to heed, appreciate, and join together with. - CH
Tall Tall Trees – “Sundrops” (from Stick to the Mystical I, 2023)
Asheville-based multi-instrumentalist Mike Savino has been making delightfully strange records as Tall Tall Trees for over a decade, and his new one is another collection delivered with virtuosic skill and a lightly-baked smile. “Sundrops” is a particular trip, with a polyrhythmic clang and loopy groove that recalls Ry Cooder. When Savino reminds us with gruff sweetness that “you got bones in your body and they’re bound to shake,” it doesn’t take much to follow his direction to “give it all you got, give it what you got.” - CH
Elisapie – “Qimmijuat (Wild Horses)” (from Inuktikut, 2023)
Inuk artist/activist Elisapie turned my head all the way around with Inuktikut, her new album of classics by artists from Cyndi Lauper to Queen to Metallica. Singing in the language that gives the album its title, Elisapie performs what she calls an act of “cultural reappropriation” linked to her memories of growing up in Quebec. The whole thing’s wonderful, but the closing version of the Rolling Stones’ “Wild Horses” is my current favorite. Perhaps the Stones’ most beautiful song, the aching ballad becomes even more wistful and dreamlike in Elisapie’s version, with piercing guitar breaking the spell cast by voice and piano. Especially in the aftermath of a certain white-dude magazine publisher saying some outrageous and sadly predictable shit, it’s lovely to hear the canon explored and expanded in compelling, beautiful, and subversive ways. Because that’s what rock and roll should be about. - CH
Oteil Burbridge – “High Time” (from Lovely View of Heaven, 2023)
Speaking of the canon getting explored and expanded, Oteil Burbridge’s new album of Jerry Garcia/Robert Hunter covers is a rich and gorgeous meditation. Burbridge – bassist for Dead & Company and veteran of the Allman Brothers Band, among others – spotlights the sweet beauty of Garcia’s melodies. His warm tenor grounds Hunter’s puzzle-box lyrics and centers the tender arrangements. On “High Time,” Burbridge sounds mournful and free, a juxtaposition that drives the whole album. (As a bonus track, he offers a version that adds his brother, flautist Kofi Burbridge, who died in 2019 and to whom the song is dedicated.) Lovely View of Heaven feels like both tribute and new dimension to a celebrated catalog. And that’s what rock and roll should be about. - CH
Jessye DeSilva – “The Boys of Summer” (single, 2023)
Speaking again of the canon getting explored and expanded, country/folk singer-songwriter Jessye DeSilva puts their stamp on Don Henley’s hurtling anthem of heartsick disaffection. (The “Deadhead sticker” is now a “Green Day sticker” on that Cadillac.) DeSilva keeps the arrangement spare, with only piano, guitar, and occasional drum fills accompanying their soaring, echo-drenched vocal. (DeSilva’s classical training and work as a musical-theatre voice teacher shines through.) Whereas Henley’s original (which I love) was driven by a particular post-‘60s orientation, DeSilva – as The Ataris did in their 2003 cover or Daddy Issues in 2017 – reveals its enduring remix-ability by new voices. And that’s what rock and roll should be about. - CH
“Running Out of Hope, Arkansas” - Brennen Leigh (from Ain’t through Honky Tonkin’ Yet, 2023) and “My Many Hurried Southern Trips” - Porter Wagoner (from Simple As I Am, 1971)
We all know a country song or twenty where folks leave their old home place or small town only to regret it later. But there’s a lively tradition of we-gotta-get-outta-this-place country songs, without regrets, and this Brennen Leigh number may be my favorite addition to the subgenre since at least Tracy Chapman’s 1988 “Fast Car” and maybe even since Steve Earle’ “Someday” a couple years earlier. “I’ve never been past Little Rock, and I’m damn near 33,” Leigh sings, and her winning wordplay around Bill Clinton’s hometown leaves you hoping she really makes it out. Maybe via Greyhound? Leigh’s rhythm track, and that squiggly little guitar line at the end of her first verse, also put me instantly in mind of this Porter and Dolly cowrite. Wagoner plays a bus driver from the Missouri side of the Ozarks who picks up all kind of good folk, on their way out of small towns quick. - DC
“Shakin’ All Over” - Van Morrison (from Accentuate the Positive, 2023)
So many fantastic versions of this elemental rocker: Johnny Kidd & The Pirates! The Guess Who! The Who! Suzi Quatro! Wanda Jackson! Maybe add this new studio version to the top of the list? So spare and slinky and swingin’, so full of groovy guitar and vocal understatement. Van the Man’s been singing it live forever, but after all his “King COVID” foolishness, it’s nice to be reminded that, closing in on 80, he’s still one of the greatest rock and soul singers we’ve ever heard. - DC
“Heaven Help Us All” - The Blind Boys of Alabama (from Echoes of the South, 2023)
Squalling midcentury gospel giants Clarence Fountain and Samuel Lewis are gone for years now. But whoever these smoother-but-wiser current leads are (not even the band’s press release identifies current members), their take on this half-century old Stevie Wonder hit feels perfectly right now, with verses that sync up nicely with the Black Lives Matter movement, the fight for sensible gun control, and more. Don’t believe in heaven myself but will enthusiastically “Amen” any catchy, heartfelt reminder that we’re all in this together. - DC
“Somewhere Down the Road” - The Steeldrivers (from Tougher than Nails, 2023)
“He said, I don’t believe in that mess they call heaven, never bought into fairytales.’” That’s how this bit of brimstone bluegrass begins. What takes my breath away is not the way singer Matt Dame says his own was taken away by a stranger’s casual dismissal of his entire belief system but, rather, the coolly confident way he dismisses the man to hell in return. Even the obligatory thoughts and prayers of succeeding verses - he still wonders about that stranger, sometimes; he remembers his mama’s prayers - sound not simply begrudging but downright belligerent. Chilling, and not in any way I thinks intended. Even so, the Steeldrivers’ bluegrass remains hard as a rock, and Dame is such a powerful, angry-sounding singer that I’m always willing to hear him out. - DC
“Heart Is a Mirror” - Ana Egge (single, 2023)
Canadian/American Egge may have written some better songs. 2018’s “Cocaine Cowboys,” say, or maybe “Girls, Girls, Girls” or “Dance Around the Room with Me” the year after. To my ears, though, “Heart Is a Mirror” is hands down Egge’s best record. Needing to be what we want to see in the world—merciful, loving, kind—is the song’s message, one you’ve heard before. But Egge’s voice feels newly husky, stronger and more resilient. As strings threaten storms here and unexpected crises there, the rhythm track holds steady, too, rebounds, loops anew and refreshed, and Egge keeps showing mercy, keeps loving, arms and heart open wide. - DC
Reading recommendations
Mike Elliott on Nanci Griffith, for No Depression
Lara Downes in conversation with Allison Russell, for NPR
Chris Willman talks to Allison Russell, for Variety
Rev. Keith Gordon on Dave Marsh’s Kick Out the Jams, for Rock and Roll Globe
Jill Mapes on Gillian Welch’s Time (the Revelator), for Pitchfork
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