Music Review: Jimi Hendrix-Hendrix in the West

Article first published as Music Review: Jimi Hendrix - Hendrix in the West on Blogcritics.

In addition to the September 13^th release of the four CD deluxe box set of Jimi Hendrix Experience: Winterland, Experience Hendrix LLC and Legacy Recordings will also be releasing Hendrix in the West Expanded. Unavailable in the States since 1974, the album originally issued by Polydor and Reprise in 1972 was a posthumous collection of live performances at the Royal Albert Hall (February 24, 1969), the San Diego Sports Arena (May 24, 1969), Berkeley Community Theate (May 30, 1970) and the Isle of Wight Festival (August 30, 1970). The expanded album will also be available as a double 12 inch vinyl set.

Although it has been announced that the album will contain "five additional previously unavailable performances" only three songs have actually been added to the album's original eight tracks. Two of those original eight, "Little Wing" and "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)," seem to have been replaced by performances recorded from other shows. While this may turn off the purist, less particular Hendrix fans will no doubt welcome the opportunity to get their hands on a classic album that offers some of the guitarist's most celebrated work. As publicity for the album indicates critic Robert Christgau has called the performances of "Johnny B. Goode" and "Red House," the latter with some caveat about "a lazy unaccompanied passage," definitive. Unfortunately, he also called the '72 album's replaced version of "Little Wing" definitive as well, and didn't much care for the inclusion of "The Queen" and "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," both of which amount to little more than an "it's great to be here in the British Isles" shout out to the local concert audience.

On the other hand the additional material on the CD is a plus. There is a 10 minute jam on "Spanish Castle Magic" that includes a lengthy drum solo and then morphs into "The Sunshine of Your Love" for a few bars near the end. The cover of Carl Perkins' "Blue Suede Shoes" is characteristically original, and "Fire" offers some nice guitar percussion interaction. The longer version of "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" is both powerful and dynamic. All in all then, it is really hard to complain about the changes: the '72 album was a classic; its 2011 reincarnation, excuse my heresy, may well be even better.

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.

Music Review: Ray Charles: Live in Concert

Article first published as Music Review: Ray Charles, Live in Concert on Blogcritics.

Jazz, gospel, rhythm and blues: Ray Charles," the genius," can do it all, and do it all he does in his 1964 concert at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles originally released by ABC-Paramount in 1965 as a twelve song album and now reissued by Concord Music Group on a nineteen track, seventeen song CD, Ray Charles: Live in Concert. There are some performers who seem uncomfortable outside the recording studio; live audiences are inconveniences that have to be put up with. There are some performers who always seem to manage a little something extra in live performance; audiences energize them. Not only is Ray Charles in this second group, he may well be at the head of the pack. The audience is having a good time; he is having a great time.

Whether he is taking a hoary old standard like "Margie," and making it his own, or rocking out his own chart topper, "Hallelujah, I Love Her So," this is a singer who has his audience in the palm of his hand. He begins with two big band jazz instrumentals: "Swing a Little Taste" and "One Mint Julep." The band has a brassy vibe that someone like Count Basie would have been proud of. On the first of the two you can hear Charles' patented growl over the piano. Original liner notes indicated that the fifteen piece band included a dozen horns featuring sax players David "Fathead" Newman, Hank Crawford and Leroy "Hog" Cooper. This is a band that can swing with the best of them. (As an aside, I recently heard "Fathead" Newman's "Hard Times" on an old time rock podcast, and if you've never heard it, you can download it from his web site.

The set includes a remarkable bluesy "Georgia on My Mind" with a flute and organ accompaniment that unaccountably didn't make the original album. Whoever decided to leave it out should have his head examined. It is one of the singer's finest moments. Lillian Fort joins him in a duet on "Don't Set Me Free." "I Got a Woman," a Charles standard, begins with a playful shout out to Chopin and then morphs into the blues. Other Charles favorites in the set include "In the Evening (When the Sun Goes Down)" with some really nice interaction with a solo trumpet, an eloquent "You Don't Know Me," and a rocking version of "What'd I Say" as the concert's finale.
Of the repertoire not normally associated with the singer, the jazzy "Makin' Whoopee" highlights the singer's versatility. His sly suggestive take on the song will make you forget bouncing Eddie Cantor's bulging eyes; that is of course supposing you're old enough to member who Eddie Cantor happens to be. Liner notes by Bill Dahl point out that the song was an "off the cuff" addition with improvised accompaniment by Wilbert Hogan's drums, bassist Edgar Willis and Sonny Forriest on guitar. In contrast there is a passionate heartfelt version of "That Lucky Old Sun" that could well be a definition of soul. There is a swinging "Baby, Don't You Cry" and a comic change of pace with "Two Ton Tessie." Here, indeed, are the many moods of Ray Charles.

There are nineteen tracks because the first cut is a short introduction and the last is a little joke with the audience added as a kind of coda to the evening's entertainment. "What'd I Say," in a nearly five and a half minute version is the real climax of the concert, and rightly so. It is everything that is great about Ray Charles and it is a fitting ending for an exciting night of music. For those of us around back in the day, Ray Charles Live in Concert will bring back a lot of wonderful memories. For those not quite that old, it may just give you some idea of what you missed.