Released in late 2004, the former John Stephens' phenomenally successful debut "Get Lifted" seemed like a bold move on an R B scene dominated by the musically uninventive, lyrically lewd sounds epitomized by R. Kelly. It wasn't the revolution (sadly stillborn) promised by D'Angelo's "Voodoo" (2000), but it was a breath of fresh air nonetheless, marking a return to more natural, less synthesized sounds (Stephens/Legend had earlier been an in-demand session keyboardist working with Kanye West, among others), more enlightened and uplifting lyrics and the sort of virtuosic but soulful genre-hopping songwriting that hasn't been heard since Stevie Wonder.
Even more old-school in both the songwriting and the production, despite the presence of such cutting-edge sonic craftsmen as West, will.i.am and Raphael Saadiq, the immediate reaction to "Once Again" is that it isn't as fresh as its predecessor, and that we've heard much of this before.
Yet if some songs turn saccharine on the subject of romance -- witness the more Stevie than Stevie "Each Day Gets Better" and "Where Did My Baby Go" or "P.D.A.
(We Just Don't Care)," which manages to sound sappy despite being an invitation to make love al fresco in the park -- the beauty of Legend's melodies is undeniable.
"Stereo," "Save Room" and "Show Me" are the sort of instant classics that justify Legend's bold stage name, while the closing "Coming Home," an emotional tune about a returning veteran, indicates he may have much, much deeper music in store for us in the future.
On his third album, Dierks Bentley returns to a theme he explored on his second album as he details the trials, tribulations, joys and temptations of a touring musician.
The singer-songwriter co-wrote all 11 tracks on the new album.
The best cut, "That Don't Make It Easy Loving Me," is a sort of sequel to Bentley's 2005 hit "Lot of Leavin' Left to Do.'' After describing on-the-road adventures involving groupies, weed and booze, Bentley's protagonist admits, "This rake-and-ramblin' life helps me write the kind of songs I wanna sing.
'' For Bentley -- who was on the road more than 300 days last year -- this is more than just a clever line in a song.
Bentley is a student of country music history, so he's well aware that the genre's canon includes an equal number of songs about Saturday night sinning and songs about Sunday morning repentance. In "The Heaven I'm Headed To,'' he espouses an open-minded, inclusive theology, and the message is reinforced by pedal steel guitarist Gary Morse's driving, dazzling playing.
As is Bentley's custom, he concludes the album with a song that is a collaboration with a bluegrass act. This time around, he enlisted the Grascals for a gospel song called "Prodigal Son's Prayer.'' This powerful track has a haunting and highly unusual percussive element in the form of prisoners' reverberating foot stomps, which were recorded at the Charles Bass Correctional Complex in Nashville.
The album is rounded out with some by-the-numbers fare, which suggests that Bentley is treading water. Still, he has crafted undeniably catchy (although familiar) melodies with the title cut and the banjo-fueled "Free and Easy (Down the Road I Go).''
Sting, "Songs From the Labyrinth" (Deutsche Grammphon) Critic's rating: Zero stars
If you've only read about the former Police man's latest album on the Net, you'd swear that somebody was parodying his ever-growing high-art pretensions: Could this really be an album of 16th-century lute music written by the Elizabethan songwriter John Dowland, performed by master lutist Edin Karamazov, with der Stingle on vocals and something called an "archlute"?
The former English teacher turned luxury car pitchman revamps these fragile chamber sounds with a modern New Age sensibility, heavy on the digital clarity, and he intersperses songs such as "Wilt thou unkind thus reave me" and "In darkness let me dwell" with dramatic readings from a letter written by Dowland. "Men say that the King of Spain is making great preparation to come for England this next summer, where if it pleased your honor to advise me, I would most willingly lose my life against them," Sting oh-so-solemnly intones before going on to lute a little more.
This is the man who wrote "Roxanne"?
He has to be kidding, right? Right?!
Onetime Chicago street musician Jake La Botz has such an intriguing life story that the bio may have overshadowed the music on his debut disc, "All Soul and No Money." His new sophomore effort, "Graveyard Jones," continues to expand on his so-called "soul-folk" style, but with a fuller band that includes red-hot guitarist Rick Holmstrom and other veterans of the music scene in La Botz's adopted hometown of Los Angeles. La Botz is skilled at crafting talking-blues numbers that are pure poetry.
His storytelling roots lie deep in the Delta and Piedmont, and his material is at once timeless and totally fresh. But if there are echoes of Delta blues king Robert Johnson in his new work, there are even stronger reminders of the twistemodern troubadour Tom Waits, whose name appears on the resumes of several of La Botz's backing musicians. Note: La Botz brings his Tattoo Across America tour to Body By Design, 13655 S.
Cicero, Crestwood, at 6 p.m. Monday and the Chess Records building, 2120 S.
Michigan, at 7 p.m. Tuesday.
Harry Nilsson created and released the original "Pussy Cats" in 1974, abetted by pal and famous fan John Lennon. Lennon was cruising Los Angeles during what music scribes refer to as his "lost weekend." Temporarily estranged from wife Yoko Ono, Lennon joined Nilsson in creating drunken public disturbances as well as their dog-eared album, which saw Nilsson's once-pure voice permanently damaged by hard living.
The Walkmen know something about hard living. Apparently, the "buddy appeal" of "Pussy Cats" made for favorite road listening. In January, the band completed its scorching "A Hundred Miles Off" with a month to spare before touring again.
By coincidence, that was the same period remaining until the lease was terminated on the band's Marcata recording studio. Rather than idling, the group decided to kiss the studio goodbye with a festive session, recording its track-for-track re-creation of "Pussy Cats." A celebratory atmosphere among friends is audible.
Like its predecessor, this is uneven, but even flawed tracks like "All My Life" (the original's lasting ode to excess) or silly ones like "Loop de Loop" burst with raucous charm. The giddy "Rock Around the Clock" features accompaniment by saxophone and table saw. The vocal harshness that surprised Nilsson's fans on originals like "Many Rivers to Cross" amounts to sensitive crooning for the Walkmen's gravel-throated Hamilton Leithauser.
From his earliest efforts with Friends of Betty through his astounding work with Red Red Meat and into Califone, Tim Rutili has been one of the Chicago underground's buried treasures, producing an incredible body of diverse music stemming from his basic but ever-evolving vision of bluesy folk-rock distorted by decadence, depression and/or alien abduction. The Windy City may have lost him as one of its own -- after the release of "Heron King Blues" (2004), he moved to L.A.
to benefit from film soundtrack work -- but thankfully his collaboration with his Califone mates (including MVP Ben Massarella on drums and percussion) and producer Brian Deck continues.
The emphasis on "Roots Crowns" is on more acoustic stringed instruments -- banjo, viola, mandolin and even a bowed balalaika -- though, as always, Rutili warps even the most traditional sounds via atmospheric tape loops, intriguing ambient noises and unexpected digital ruptures, pairing these distinctive and entrancing grooves with a similarly fractured lyrical approach rife with images of rebirth. "Candy glass sun on red tile / This winter bed lives and breathes," he sings at the close of the disc on Eno-styled "If You Would," and it's nice to hear that the California sun is agreeing with him.
Junior Wells had two alter egos: the Hoodoo Man, the harmonica virtuoso and dynamic performer whose first album on Chicago's Delmark Records was the classic "Hoodoo Man Blues," and the Godfather, reflecting his ill-advised desire to be the James Brown of the blues. The latter character emerged frequently during the final years in the life of Wells, who died in 1998. And surprisingly, the Junior Wells who recorded the 1975 WXRT-FM "Unconcert" now being released as "Live at Theresa's" was already comfortably ensconced in his Godfather persona by that time.
The disc is a valuable piece of local blues history in that it transports listeners to the lounge at 4801 S. Indiana, where Wells held court for so many memorable evenings. Now, if there had been just a little more Hoodoo Man and a little less Godfather, this disc -- and Wells' legacy -- would have been flawless.
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