The
end of the old year and the beginning of the new one provide a rare,
but appropriate time to look back. That means doing something Reverberations
doesn't do a great deal, re-posting previous reviews. We did so, of
course, throughout the Top 10 Countdown; three of the top 10 (okay,
eleven technically) required new reviews, but eight were previously
reviewed.
Why
do this? Two reasons: first, these are really good records, deserving
of a second look and a extra bit of love; second, it allows
Reverberations a bit more love, attention and traffic for engaging in
reason number one. You know?
Over the coming days we'll take a look at albums 11-20, the ones narrowly missing the Top 10 Countdown.
At No. 13, from a previous published review (April 2012), here's ...
Dr. John - Locked Down (Nonesuch)
Every music lover has
moments of revelation. I still recall vividly the first time I heard the
Animals riveting (yes, it was riveting – I know it’s the critical cliché to end
all critical clichés, and I don’t care) take on the American folk chestnut
“House of the Rising Sun.” It was playing on the car radio. I made my mom leave
the car running as we pulled into a parking space in front of my bro’s jewelry
store in downtown Lawrence.
Never in my sweet, short life had I heard anything like it. I was a pre-teen. My
exposure to black music was limited to Nat King Cole and Harry Belafonte;
suffice to say Charley Patton wasn’t playing on WHB. The Animals’ singer, Eric
Burdon, was from Newcastle,
England, but
that voice, and its amazing conviction and intensity stemmed from his adoration
of the American blues tradition. I didn’t even know it yet, but I was hooked.
The mise en scene of
“House of the Rising Sun” was New
Orleans. When you’re a white bread kid in the sixth
grade from Kansas your impressions of New Orleans came from Al Hirt and Pete
Fountain (okay, Louis Armstrong might cross your radar occasionally, but almost
as a novelty). That’s what you saw on television. No knock on those dudes, but
they represented a commercialized, somewhat sanitized version of the music of New Orleans. That sound
occasionally seeped into the pop mainstream of the Sixties. Fats Domino may
have been past his chart prime, but songs like “Iko Iko” by the Dixie Cups and
the odd hit from Lee Dorsey (especially “Working in a Coal Mine”) gave a hint
what was cooking in the Big Easy. Aaron Neville had a hit with “Tell It Like It
Is” but its rhythm n’ blues sound was not especially Nawlins-centric.
For me, another
revelatory moment was the first time I heard Dr. John – on a short-lived Kansas City underground FM
station called KCJC. The tune was “Mama Roux” if I recall correctly. I’d never
heard anything quite like it. Heck, most of America hadn’t. The gumbo of
styles, representative of New Orleans,
that became available to anyone receptive to it in the Seventies, was still
underground culturally in 1968. The Meters first album didn’t drop until 1969.
Professor Longhair, after recording for several labels in the Fifties with
marginal commercial results, was working as a janitor throughout most of the
Sixties. The aforementioned chart hits by Dorsey, Neville and the Dixie Cups
only hinted at what was going on in the diverse neighborhoods of the Crescent City.
Dr. John, the Night
Tripper was a persona created by a Los Angeles
based New Orleans
ex-pat named Mac Rebennack. Rebennack had played on many recordings as a very
young man in New Orleans.
He moved on to Los Angeles
where he was a go-to session man between 1963 and 1968.
As Dr. John,
Rebennack combined the full simmering roux of New Orleans sounds (sanctified church music
and Saturday night grind) and mixed them shrewdly and affectingly with the
psychedelic wail of the emerging counterculture. Three similarly themed albums
cementing the Dr. John cult followed the debut record (Dr. John, the Night Tripper - the album that included “Mama Roux”).
Rebennack followed those first four releases with Gumbo, an excellent session that paid homage to hometown piano
heroes like Professor Longhair and James Booker, produced by fellow New Orleans legend, Allen
Toussaint.
Over the last
thirty-some years the Dr. has kept active. As a solo artist he’s responsible
for twenty-eight albums. Not bad for a guy who hasn’t had a hit in forty years
(1973’s “Right Place,
Wrong Time”) and who fought a junk habit until the late Eighties, as I
understand it. There’s good music throughout that twenty-eight record catalog;
but nothing quite as unique or captivating as those early records – until Locked Down.
Dr. John is pictured
in full Night Tripper regalia on the front cover of Locked Down. It’s appropriate. But Locked Down isn’t simply a retread of those four early Dr. John
records. It also draws on the funky sounds of his mid-Seventies releases In the Right Place (home of “Right Place, Wrong
Time”) and Desitively Bonnaroo. Locked Down’s producer, Black Keys
singer-guitarist Dan Auerbach, also introduced West African and Jamaican
grooves (dub echoes resound on the track “Getaway”), grooves implicit (as cross-cultural
influence) in the New Orleans sonic stew. The results are an updated take on
the Gris-gris alchemy that blew my teenage mind back in the day.
Auerbach’s production
is detailed, but dense. The sounds is both steeped in tradition and totally
fresh. The model for this collaboration – young Turk produces veteran artist, wasn’t
unprecedented. Jack White resurrected Loretta Lynn’s soul with Van Lear Rose. Joe Henry made Solomon
Burke sound regal again with Don’t Give
Up On Me. But those record were produced for artists primarily known for
singing and songwriting, Locked Down
features an artist with major chops and a singular instrumental vision. All
Auerbach could do was surround him with the right musicians and shape his
materials. He couldn’t have done a better job. Drummer Max Weissenfeldt knows
all the tricks necessary to play this music, having absorbed the playing of
Earl Palmer and Ziggy Modeliste (among others), but he plays with a flair and
sensibility all his own. Bassist Nick Movshon (Black Keys, Amy Winehouse,
Sharon Jones, Wu Tang Clan) provides foundation, extemporaneous moments, and
combinations of the two - like the percolating funk that bubbles underneath
“Getaway.” Brian Olive (solo recordings on Alive Records, where Black Keys got
their start) works with Auerbach beautifully, making a great guitar team. They
understand that groove is about space. On “Ice Age” they combine the sinew of
Leo Nocentelli (Meters) with the Mali-lilt of Tinariwen
Auerbach gets his
moments. His blistering solo on the outro of “Getaway” calls to mind the
Sixties mind-melt of guitarists like John Cippolina and Henry Vestine (Canned
Heat.) The pure, bluesy intro to “You Lie” is R.L. Burnside rendered elegiac. And
his blowback solo on the title cut is note perfect, too.
Still, this is Dr.
John’s record. At seventy-one his voice is still sly, suggestive and powerful. Among
his many vocal models, for me Lee Dorsey still stands out; it’s something in
the slur, the slide and the break in his voice. Of course he’s as much leader
of this band as Auerbach. He’s also the rhythmic heart of these sessions as
much as Weissenfeldt and Movshon, and his solo turns are full of musicality and
surprise – check out the Sun Ra meets second line solo on “Ice Age.”
Locked Down
is truly a post-Katrina piece of work from a man who’s none too pleased by the
violence and injustice done his beloved hometown. The title track,
“Revolution,” “Ice Age,” and “You Lie” all focus an evil eye on the
transgressive, abusive powers that be – justice that casts too blind an eye,
governments that fail to serve the people in the streets, corporations that rob
them blind.
With a chorus that
sounds like a drawled John Lennon, the call to arms “Revolution” is driven and
punctuated by a doubled bari-sax line that’s straight out of Moondog (not Johnny,
but the composer from St. Mary’s, Kansas, y’all). “Ice Age” is a funky
workingman’s blues. Even an apparent love song like “Getaway” contains lyrics
with references to being “strung out,” and images of a “padded dungeon,” and
“jailhouse cell.”
Lighter shades of Big
Easy funk come from “Big Shot,” a friendly bit of braggart’s bravado.
Weissenfeldt’s parade drumming is counterpoint to the funereal “Two Steps from
the Blues” guitar figure that frames the song. A pretty Fender Rhodes
intro(duces) “My Children, My Angels,” a fatherly song that’s both confessional
and devotional (“Your pa did a lotta work on hisself”).
While much of Locked Down is spent in protest or
secular pursuits, it concludes with Dr. John’s thank you to the man upstairs,
“God’s Sure Been Good” (“better than me to myself”). It’s an eloquent expression
of faith and gratitude from a man who’s been down some hard roads. As Gods go,
I’ll take the Dr. John model. In a world full of people who invoke God to
support fear, hatred and sanctimonious judgment it’s good to hear a believer
sing about the God of love, even if I don’t know what the hell to think my own
self.
Dr. John may have
traveled the world, but his heart has never been far from the Third Ward where
he grew up. Locked Down is a
resounding statement from a master. It evinces rage, provokes laughter and
moves you to dance. This album speaks from, of and to the soul of that most
unique among great American cities, New
Orleans.
- One of the great things about
having a blog is that if you feel like going off into reverie, leaving
the constraints of review behind, you can. Sometimes it's good to
tighten things up. Sometimes it's good to let it go. This review is
dedicated to my late friend, editor and mentor Ranger Bob, who would
have l-o-v-e-d this record.
Reverberating: 9.1 (Yeah, it should be less given that it's No. 13. A foolish consistency really is the hobgoblin of a small mind, though, and mine is bursting. So there it is.)
From here we direct you to the estimable Blurt:
Honestly, it was probably as much as he needed to say about
the god damn Titanic. At thirteen plus minutes, the title track of Tempest is ‘about’ the Titanic.” It’s a trusty
Dylan conceit, a concoction of history, narrative, myth, fiction, and darkness,
It’s also a muddled mess that Dylan defenders are trying
to will into being another masterpiece. Meh. It owes no small debt to the New
Lost City Ramblers song “Titanic,” by the way. Shit, by the end of the song I was reminded of
John Lennon’s offhand remark concerning some Beethoven symphony (some classical
piece, anyway … work with me!) that George Martin played for him. When George
asked him what he thought, John replied “I don’t know, George, by the time it
was over I couldn’t remember what the beginning sounded like.” What John said. 
Okay, that preface was provoked by my experience with Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose,
the debut full-length album from a twenty-one year old artist from
Newcastle, England named Beth Jeans Houghton. She and her band the
Hooves of Destiny make music that forces you to hear it on its own
terms. Comparisons I’ve read of Houghton’s music to artists like Nico
and Laura Marling left me wondering if I was listening to the same
record. Houghton's soprano, by turns breathy, piercing, sweet is an
altogether different instrument compared to Nico or Marling's altos. Nor
are her songwriting and arranging tendencies especially similar.
Another frequent comparison, to Joni Mitchell, makes some sense. And
that presented a bit of a conundrum because I’m not much of Joni
Mitchell fan, and I really enjoy YTCN. Proving only that art I’m not nuts about can inspire art I dig.
I
enjoy Beth Jeans Houghton’s work as pure musical pleasure. Her lyrics
are obtuse – imagistic, but not always communicative – but her songs are
richly melodic and she and her band adorn them with varied and
imaginative instrumental support. The Hooves are especially valuable as
harmony singers, and while they do a nice job in live performance (if
YouTube is any indication), their role here is a little marginalized by
the sheer volume and variety of parts that Houghton herself plays – for
she is at the heart of the execution of this music, beyond simply
writing and singing the songs. At twenty-one she’s already an auteur
(she’s even responsible for the artwork for YTCN). Producer Ben Hiller ably assists Houghton – his credits include production for Blur’s Think Tank. 
