Music Review: Levon Helm, Ramble at the Ryman

Article first published as Music Review: Levon Helm - Ramble at the Ryman on Blogcritics.

Often there is an excitement about live concert recordings, an electricity that studio gigs for all their perfection can never quite equal. Just listen to the audience reaction to the first few bars of "Rag Mama Rag” on Levon Helm's new album Ramble at the Ryman and you can feel the thrill of expectation. It is the kind of response that has to affect a performance. It is the kind of audience reaction that brings out the best in a performer. Helm's ramble on the fabled Ryman stage builds on that energy to revisit and reinvigorate some of the best of his classic work. This ramble is a joyful romp.

Ramble at the Ryman collects fifteen songs that range over the different stages of Helm's career. There are songs from his days with The Band; there are songs from 2007's Dirt Farmer. Variety is key to the set. From the opening number, Robbie Robertson's "Ophelia" which ends with a solid Dixieland jam to the final rousing chorus of "The Weight" with its horns and harmonica, Helms and an impressive line up of his friends who seem to have just casually dropped by to help out run a gamut of musical genres. There are low down blues like "Baby Scratch My Back" and twanging country blues like Teresa Williams' vocal on "Time Out For the Blues." "Anna Lee" and "A Train Robbery" are modern takes on the traditional narrative folk ballad. Sheryl Crow joins Helm for a Cajun inspired "Evangeline" and then does a Carter Family country hymn, "No Depression in Heaven." The traditional "Deep Elem Blues" has a real jazz feel and Chuck Berry's "Back to Memphis" is an old time rocker. With guests like Crow and Buddy Miller, Sam Bush, Billy Bob Thornton and John Hiatt adding their voices to the mix, whether it is repertoire or performer, this is an album that doesn't want for diversity.

While for those of us of a certain age, the homage to the days of The Band with tunes like "The Weight," "Rag Mama Rag," "Chest Fever" and "The Shape I'm In" may well be the highlights of the concert, this is not a golden oldies show. If Helm isn't going the way of his erstwhile band mate Robertson on his recent album, How to Become a Clairvoyant and recording brand new music, it is nice to see him putting his own stamp on these classics.

The band for the concert, which is also available on DVD, includes Larry Cambell on electric guitar and an assortment of other instruments, daughter Amy Helm on drums and mandolin, Teresa Williams on acoustic guitar, and Brian Mitchell on piano, organ and accordion. All join in on vocals. There is a swinging horn section made of Erik Lawrence and Jay Collins on saxophone, Stephen Bernstein on trumpet, and Clark Gayton on trombone and tuba. Tony Leone joins Helm on drums and Paul Ossola plays bass. Little Sammy Davis is featured on harmonica and does a bang up job rocking the blues on "Fannie Mae."

After a bout with throat cancer and problems with his voice, it is truly exciting to see how well he has recovered. Helm may not be quite the singer he was back in the day, but who is? The signature Southern grit that marked his vocals in the past with true intensity and emotional honesty still comes through loud and clear. And that is plenty good enough to make Ramble at the Ryman an album that should be on your iPod.





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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.