Music Review: Robbie Robertson, How to Become a Clairvoyant

Article first published as Music Review: Robbie Robertson - How to Become a Clairvoyant on Blogcritics.

It has been more than ten years since Robbie Robertson, he of The Band, has put out a new record, but come April 5 that vacuum will be filled. He has a new album, How to Become a Clairvoyant, and it's a gem. There are twelve songs on the CD: eight written by Robertson alone, two in collaboration with Eric Clapton who also plays on a number of cuts, one with album co-producer, Marius de Vries, and one Clapton solo composition. Most are highly personal songs written with compelling honesty. They are about his high flying days in New York; they are about his wrenching decision to leave The Band. He says: "I've never before been able to write about those times. . . . But enough time had passed that suddenly all of these thoughts and feelings finally crept under the door with a certain urgency." It is an urgency that comes out clearly in the passion of his performance.

Probably of greatest interest biographically is his treatment of his exit from The Band in "This is Where I Get Off." It evokes the problems that come with success, how "working the graveyard shift" will "drift" you "off course." It never gets more specific than "somebody done me wrong along the way," but there is a real feeling of sadness at making this break that was never "part of the plan." Besides, there is an infectious hook that will echo in your head long after the song ends. "The Right Mistake," with its paradoxical title may also be a comment on the break, although if it is, it is even less specific than "This is Where I Get Off."

"He Don't Live Here No More" is a confessional: "there was a cloud hanging over me." It is the bluesy acknowledgment of a life run amok. The title song, "How to Become a Clairvoyant," talks about some of the weirdness in New York around the Chelsea Hotel and environs, the home away from home for a good many of the avant garde artists back in the day. Patty Smith talks about it at length in her award winning memoir, Just Kids. It was a freaked out place and the song mirrors that spaced out quality, especially as it ends. You have to wonder if while looking back at all of the excess and strangeness, there isn't also some regret for a time when one was still young and nothing seemed impossible. "When the Night Was Young" is a more overt lament for the dreams of youth, the time when you thought you could change the world. "She's Not Mine" couches the regret over the choices we make in a big wall of sound that just seems to fall apart at the end.

"Fear of Falling," written and sung with Clapton has that unmistakable Clapton sound, and his instrumental "Madame X" is as sweet a melody as any he's written. Steve Winwood is featured on the organ in "Fear of Falling" as well as two other songs on the album. "Tango For Jango," the other instrumental on the disc is something quite apart from everything else on the album. Besides Robertson on gut string guitar and keyboard, it features de Vries also on keyboard, and Frank Marocco on accordion, Anne Marie Calhoun, violin, Tina Guo, on cello. The rhythm section is bassist Palladino and Ian Thomas on drums. Not only is the orchestration unique for this album, it is also the only piece that doesn't highlight the guitar.

This is not strange. What would be strange would be any album that features such great guitar players as Robertson and Clapton that didn't highlight the guitar. Add to the mix on selected tracks Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor, Robert Randolph and Tom Morello (Rage Against the Machine) and you've got a high powered crew that promises some real excitement, a promise that is delivered in spades. It is no accident that the album includes a thumping tribute to the great guitar players: "Axman." This is Robertson's acknowledgement to the masters of his instrument. It is his nod to his musical ancestors, just as "Straight Down the Line" is an ironic look back at the beginnings of rock when all too many saw it as the work of the devil: "the demons are out tonight." Robertson sings with a gleeful demonic rasp, and the cut ends with a powerful driving guitar solo. Guitars—fantastic guitar playing is all over this album.

Robertson has been busy writing for music for the movies. Indeed, we are told he broke off work on this album to work on Shutter Island for long time associate Martin Scorsese. He says it gave him a chance to "clear his head." If this album is any indication, his head is plenty clear. Let's hope it stays clear and there's more to come.

DVD Review: Edge of Darkness (BBC mini-series)

On a rainy Yorkshire night, police Inspector Ronald Craven,, a widowed father, played by Bob Peck, picks up his young daughter at a political meeting. They drive home and on their way to the front door, they are confronted by a shouting, mysterious figure who lets go a shot gun blast that kills the young woman. Thus begins the 1985 BBC six part mini-series, Edge of Darkness now available on DVD.

At first the assumption is that the killer was looking for revenge against Craven. But very quickly, it becomes apparent that this may not be the case at all. First as Craven goes through his daughter's things, he makes some strange discoveries—a map, a radiation detector, and most mysteriously a revolver. Then he learns that the girl may have been a member of a subversive anti-nuclear group along with her socialist boyfriend boy friend; moreover she may well have been involved in some kind of terrorism. In London, he discovers that she has been under investigation by at least one government secret agency. It is entirely possible that the killer was really after her.

Haunted by hallucinatory visions of his daughter both as an adult and as a child, Craven embarks on a search for the killer, and more importantly for the truth about her activities. Slowly he becomes entangled in political machinations involving British secret agents, the CIA, and upper level government ministers. He enters a Machiavellian world of pragmatic politics, where ends justify means, one time friends turn into enemies, and where it is never easy to tell the guys in the white hats from those in the black.

Indeed that is the key to the success of Edge of Darkness. It is an adult thriller. Unlike the blockbuster action flicks which deal with a simple world where there is good and there is evil and they are fairly easily recognized, that have come to define the form, its world is much more complex. Good and evil are not always recognizable. Good and evil may not even be relevant considerations in this world. Morality may well be subject to pragmatics.

In keeping with this complexity, there is more emphasis on character than on car chases. The story moves slowly, at a snail's pace compared to the typical film in the genre. Director Martin Campbell lets his camera linger over silent close ups of his actors caught in moments of introspection. He especially follows the distraught Craven as he sometimes wanders aimlessly, pursued by his visions of the past, his emotions bottled up in a vain attempt at the stiff upper lip so admired by the Brits. Peck's brilliantly understated performance leaves the viewer no doubt of the turmoil within and gives the inevitable eruption of passion that much more emotional truth. This is no stereotypical superman of the Liam Neeson in Taken variety. This is a man driven, but a man who might well fail.

Most of the performances emphasize subtlety of character and shy away from scenery chewing. Perhaps Joe Don Baker's Darius Jedburgh, a wise mouthed American agent with country boy façade, comes close to the top, but even he doesn't really go over. Ian McNeice and Charles Kay as British secret agents are suitably subdued and ironically unflappable. At times they seem more concerned with food than with their political problems. Joanne Whalley plays Emma Craven, the daughter, with wide eyed sweetness and innocent optimism. Zoe Wannamaker has a brief moment or two as a secret agent and a love interest. Hugh Fraser as the head of a British nuclear facility turns in an effective performance as the face of institutional villainy.

The series' BAFTA award winning score was composed by Eric Clapton and Michael Kamen. The DVD provides a music only option to isolate the score as one of the special features. Also included is an alternate ending (which seems only slightly altered). I must admit neither my wife nor I could tell the difference on first viewing. There are interviews with cast and crew in a section called, "Magnox—The Secrets of Edge of Darkness," as well as an interview with Bob Peck from a BBC morning show.

This two disc DVD set of the original series offers audiences who may have been somewhat disappointed with Campbell's recent big screen remake with Mel Gibson something they may well find more palatable.