ABNER JAY - True Story of Abner Jay [USA blues, country, folk compilation 1963-1976] 2009 Mississippi Records MR-036

A classic! Abner Jay was a one man band with a style completely onto himself. His music harkens back to the sounds of the 1800's (pre blues) but somehow sounds wholly modern at the same time. Abner plays drums with his feet, electric banjo and harmonica and sings with one of the richest baritone voices you'll ever hear, all at the same time.

This LP features the creme de la creme of Abners' self released music from the 60's and 70's - hits like 'I'm so depressed', 'Vietnam', 'St. James Infirmary, and 'The Reason Young People do drugs.' One of Mississippi Records absolute best titles hands down.

Jay

UNCLE WALT'S BAND - Recorded Live at Waterloo Ice House [USA folk, rock, country 1982] 2021 Omnivore Recordings OVCD-407

 

Originally released in 1982 as a 14-song set recorded at Austin's Waterloo Ice House, this expanded edition of 21 tracks by the trio of Walter Hyatt, Champ Hood and David Ball is an entertaining mix of originals and nicely chosen covers.

Hyatt contributes one of the stronger country compositions with "Georgia Rose," later covered by Jimmie Dale Gilmore on his 2000 album "One Endless Night," a tear jerker about lost love ("Tonight I'm drinking while I'm thinking/Until the beer joints close/And I'm thinking of someone/I called my Georgia Rose").

 Hood injects some rock and roll into the mix with "Lose Me Baby" and even a touch of Motown with "Eddie's Girl." Ball delivers the strongest vocals on the bluesy "Bye, Bye Baby" featuring a nice guitar solo from Hood, and the jazz flavored "Just A Little Understanding" that recalls Paul McCartney.

Standout covers are "Snowing Me Under," written by Steve Runkle (a bandmate of Hyatt and Hood in the '80s Nashville-based The Contenders) with a soulful vocal by Hyatt, and Ball's take on the ballad "Since I Fell For You'' that was a pop hit for Lenny Welch in 1963. Other highlights are the 1960 Elvis Presley hit "I Gotta Know" and the obscure Fats Domino 1968 album cut "Honest Papas Love Mamas Better." The diverse repertoire of the band is best exemplified by the closing cover of Brazilian jazz artist Moacir Santos' "Early Morning Love" that in particular showcases the sweet harmonies of the trio.

 As with previous reissues of their studio albums "Recorded Live at Waterloo Ice House" gives long overdue exposure to hidden gems from Uncle Walt's Band. Gilmore is quoted in the liner notes declaring "the three best singers in Austin were all in the same band," an observation given credence by this release.

Ice

JOHNNY CASH - Rockabilly Blues [USA country, rock and roll 1980] 1999 Koch Records, Sony Music KOC-CD-7979, A28689

 

Not as earth-shaking as his work with The Tennessee Two, and not really true rockabilly, it's still a convincing album of country-rock songs with more depth than nearly anything else coming from Nashville at the time.

Rockabilly

JOHNNY CASH - At San Quentin [USA country 1969] 2017 Sony 88985413162

 

To put the performance on Johnny Cash at San Quentin in a bit of perspective: Johnny Cash's key partner in the Tennessee Two, guitarist Luther Perkins, died in August 1968, just seven months before this set was recorded in February 1969. In addition to that, Cash was nearing the peak of his popularity -- his 1968 live album, At Folsom Prison, was a smash success -- but he was nearly at his wildest in his personal life, which surely spilled over into his performance. All of this sets the stage for Johnny Cash at San Quentin, a nominal sequel to At Folsom Prison that surpasses its predecessor and captures Cash at his rawest and wildest. Part of this is due to how he feeds off of his captive audience, playing to the prisoners and seeming like one of them, but it's also due to the shifting dynamic within the band. Without Perkins, Cash isn't tied to the percolating two-step that defined his music to that point. Sure, it's still there, but it has a different feel coming from a different guitarist, and Cash sounds unhinged as he careens through his jailhouse ballads, old hits, and rockabilly-styled ravers, and even covers the Lovin' Spoonful ("Darlin' Companion"). No other Johnny Cash record sounds as wild as this. He sounds like an outlaw and renegade here, which is what gives it power -- listen to "A Boy Named Sue," a Shel Silverstein composition that could have been too cute by half, but is rescued by the wild-eyed, committed performance by Cash, where it sounds like he really was set on murdering that son of a bitch who named him Sue. He sounds that way throughout the record, and while most of the best moments did make it to the original 1969 album, the 2000 Columbia/Legacy release eclipses it by presenting nine previously unreleased bonus tracks, doubling the album's length, and presenting such insanely wild numbers as "Big River" as well as sweeter selections like "Daddy Sang Bass." Now, that's the only way to get the record, and that's how it should be, because this extra material makes a legendary album all the greater -- in fact, it helps make a case that this is the best Johnny Cash album ever cut.

Cash

THE HOLY MODAL ROUNDERS - Last Round [USA folk, country 1978] 2000 Adelphi Records Inc. GCD 1030

 

Unless, like the Holy Modal Rounders, you've spent a lot of time listening to Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music while ingesting recreational drugs, their music might sound a bit odd to you. Actually, given the ramshackle performances, it sounds a bit odd in any case, but as with any humorously intended work, appreciation of it depends on one's sympathy with the artists. For initiates, this seventh (and, so it seemed at the time of its release, final) album was one of the Rounders' better ones, with Peter Stampfel, Chris Weber, and especially Robin Remaily turning out characteristic new work and covers of old songs like "Euphoria" and "If You Want to Be a Bird" backed by a rhythm section. "August, 1967 (Hippies Call It STP)," borrows its tune from "Fishin' Blues," while head Rounders Peter Stampfel and Steve Weber sing a paean to psychedelic drug use that breaks down into odd references such as this allusion to Amos & Andy: "'Splain dat to me, Kingfish, it ain't too clear/King it to me, 'splainfsh, said the engineer."The CD reissue released on June 27, 2000, added three bonus tracks. "TV Song" is a tribute to the addictive power of television; "Year of Jubilo" revives a Civil War victory celebration; and "Snappin' Pussy" is an appropriately bawdy follow-up to an earlier Rounders favorite, "Boobs a Lot."

Holy

Various Artists - Country Funk 1969-1975 & Country Funk II 1967-1974 (2012-2104 Light In The Attic LITA 083 & LITA 116)

Intrepid record label Light in the Attic offers us another theme-based compilation we didn't know we needed until they did it. Previous examples, Listen Whitey! The Sounds of Black Power 1967-1974, the two volumes of Thai Funk, and Our Lives Are Shaped by What We Love: Motown's MoWest Story 1971-73 to name a few, were standard bearers; they highlighted essential sounds few but collectors owned. Country Funk: 1969-1975 brings together 16 sides from the catalogs of artists well-known and marginal, whose works all share mercurial qualities: their Southern rural roots actively engage emergent funk. Tony Joe White and Jim Ford are obvious choices, but their representative tracks aren't. In the former case, it's the swaggering "Stud Spider," and in the latter's it's raw gutbucket "I'm Wanta Make Her Love Me." Nostalgic memory and longing for Southern locales are addressed in numerous places such as in Johnny Adams' "Georgia Morning Dew" and John Randolph Marr's "Hello L.A - Bye Bye Birmingham." Set opener Dale Hawkins celebrates it all in "L.A., Memphis, Tyler, Texas" as Tower of Power-styled horns meet Stax guitars and Canned Heat's laid-back boogie. Elsewhere, the deep, funky, electric blues connect Gray Fox's reading of Buzz Clifford's "Hawg Frog" and Johnny Jenkins' take on Dr. John's classic "I Walk On Gilded Splinters"; their choruses and production quite literally mirror one another. Urban Blues, bluegrass, and country gospel make their appearance in Link Wray's "Fire and Brimstone." Bobbie Gentry's "He Made a Woman Out of Me," with its wah-wahs, shimmering strings, and shiny horns offers the sultry Delta blues underscored by massive breaks. And speaking of breaks, one of the stone killers in this set is Dennis the Fox's "Piledriver," with its thoroughly urban look at a country female trucker. Bobby Darin's "Light Blue" has a smoldering bassline that is brought right to the front line just as it is in Bobby Charles' "Street People." While Cherokee's "Funky Business" fits the theme, it has as much of the Byrds in it as it does Joe South. Mac Davis' "Lucas Was a Redneck" is a little too close to Tony Joe White for comfort, but that's a small quibble. Country Funk: 1969-1975 illuminates a brief but fruitful period where genre lines blurred, and both genres benefitted mightily.

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