Buddy Guy

Tags: blues

Dennis Wilson

Pacific Ocean Blue (Legacy Edition)

Caribou/Epic/Legacy

When it comes down to it, Wilson had more soul in his little finger than an army of Joss Stones, Amy Winehouses and Duffys. The small but concentrated body of work he left behind is so potent, one can feel the emotion gushing from the speakers. It really is, as Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins says, “straight from the gut, just like blood on tape.”

Unfortunately, the Beach Boy lived fast, died young and left a good-looking corpse, as they say. But not before creating one hell of a solo album, the first from the group’s members, in 1977. The LP, built in the studio almost singlehandedly, sold as well as any late-’70s Beach Boy release but went out of print in the early ’80s, and only saw CD release for six months in 1991; both have been highly collectable and heavily bootlegged.

Like Dave Davies (also from a famous brother group), Wilson had fewer than a dozen songs he wrote and sang lead on before recording a solo album. But when he finally did, it was akin to the quiet Beatle’s “All Things Must Pass” — so much pent-up creativity it just spilled out.

That creativity almost lasted long enough for a sophomore album, to be called “Bambu.” Unfinished tracks from those sessions make up the bulk of Disc 2. Five more bonus songs are spread across both discs, including two versions of “Holy Man” (the first an instrumental because Wilson didn’t have any lyrics, and the second fleshed out with words by collaborator Gregg Jakobson and vocals by the aforementioned Hawkins).

Tracks
Disc One: Pacific Ocean Blue
1. River Song
2. What’s Wrong
3. Moonshine
4. Friday Night
5. Dreamer
6. Thoughts Of You
7. Time
8. You And I
9. Pacific Ocean Blues
10. Farewell My Friend
11. Rainbows
12. End Of The Show
Bonus Tracks:
13. Tug Of Love (previously unreleased)
14. Only With You (previously unreleased)
15. Holy Man (Instrumental) (previously unreleased)
16. Mexico (previously unreleased)

Disc Two: Bambu (The Caribou Sessions)
1. Under The Moonlight
2. It’s Not Too Late
3. School Girl
4. Love Remember Me
5. Love Surrounds Me
6. Wild Situation
7. Common
8. Are You Real
9. He’s A Bum
10. Cocktails
11. I Love You
12. Constant Companion
13. Time For Bed
14. Album Tag Song
15. All Alone
16. Piano Variations On Thoughts of You
Bonus Track:
17. Holy Man (Taylor Hawkins version)

Total time: 1:53:25

External Links
label’s Pacific Ocean Blue website
amazon.com
iTunes Store

Tags: rock, soul

Jackie Greene

Giving Up the Ghost

429 Records

He went from the Northern California foothills (Cameron Park, near Placerville, to be exact) to Sacramento to San Francisco, but as Greene put it in a recent radio interview, “For being on the road a lot, it kind of doesn’t matter where I live.”

And he should know, having just finished more than a year touring as lead singer in Phil Lesh’s latest incarnation of Phil and Friends (for a taste, go here). But while that gig introduced him to countless people who’d never heard of him, Greene already had built up considerable steam on his own. Over the course of several albums, he perfected his brand of folk, blues and rock, and in 2006 arrived at major label Verve for “American Myth.”

Unfortunately, shortly afterward the label’s president was fired. The album fizzled and the singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist found himself released from the long-term contract he’d just signed. Then 429 Records, impressed with Greene’s contribution last year of “Look Out Cleveland” to its all-star tribute to The Band, came to the rescue and made “Ghost” possible.

Co-produced by Greene and Steve Berlin of Los Lobos, it features support by David Hidalgo (Los Lobos), Larry Campbell (Bob Dylan), Mic Gillette (Tower of Power), and Pete Thomas and Davey Farragher (Elvis Costello). It’s an eclectic set that’s polished but not slick, familiar yet new, and full of texture and layers that make each new listen that much more enjoyable.

Tracks
1. Shaken
2. Animal
3. I Don’t Live In A Dream
4. Like A Ball & Chain
5. Uphill Mountain
6. Don’t Let The Devil Take Your Mind
7. Prayer For Spanish Harlem
8. Downhearted
9. Follow You
10. Another Love Gone Bad
11. When You Return
12. Ghosts Of Promised Lands

Total time: 52:27

External Links
artist’s website
amazon.com
iTunes Store

Tags: blues, folk, rock

George Gershwin

Complete Music for Piano & Orchestra

Bridge

These symphonic reimaginings of Gershwin’s crossover compositions succeed in terms of performance as well as engineering: Anne-Marie McDermott superbly conveys the serious and playful side of the material; guest conductor Justin Brown moves the Dallas Symphony Orchestra along at just the right speed, balancing restraint with vigor; and the digital recording combines with the excellent Meyerson Symphony Center acoustics to provide optimal audio.

The composer wrote “Rhapsody in Blue” for solo piano and jazz band, performing it at its 1924 debut with Paul Whiteman and His Palais Royal Orchestra as orchestrated by Whiteman’s pianist, Ferde Grofé (”Grand Canyon Suite”). Here it is performed with a substantially larger ensemble, yet retains the original’s verve and avoids the bombast of later orchestrations.

“Second Rhapsody” is not a sequel to “Blue,” but an expansion of a six-minute sequence written for the 1931 Hollywood musical “Delicious,” to accompany a scene in which the heroine runs lost and frightened on the streets of New York. Not so well-received, Gershwin considered it among his best work.

The variations on “I Got Rhythm” are wildly varied: Among other techniques, the 1934 set emulated the sound of Chinese flutes, employed waltz time and paired the pianist’s right hand playing the melody normally with the left hand playing it upside down. The version here is the 1953 reworking for large orchestra by William Schoenfeld, which uses clarinets as well as saxophones and increases the other woodwinds.

The disc concludes with 1924’s “Piano Concerto in F,” whose three movements follow the traditional structure of fast, slow, fast, except that it’s also rhythm, blues, rhythm. Of course, the rhythm in those times was the Charleston.

Tracks
1. Rhapsody In Blue
2. Second Rhapsody
3. “I Got Rhythm” Variations
4. Piano Concerto In F

Total time: 72:53

External links
artist’s website
amazon.com

Tags: blues, classical, jazz

Eric Sardinas and Big Motor

Eric Sardinas and Big Motor

Favored Nations

Sardinas won’t be able to do these songs justice in concert, and that’s a good thing. There hasn’t been a lot of difference between his shows and his CDs, because he’s always recorded in a trio configuration (outside of an occasional guest appearance by Hubert Sumlin, Johnny Winter or Honeyboy Edwards). But the addition of “and Big Motor” to his moniker isn’t the only change since his last album five years ago.

He’s got a new bass player and drummer, and the bass has gone electric, which makes a big difference because Sardinas’ unique sound owes everything to his electrified Dobro — a traditional instrument, to be sure, but an electric one just sounds better with an electric bass.

Several tracks include piano and organ (together) and female background singers, also a first for the bluesman. Filling out the sound even more is his newfound use of multitracked guitars, often acoustic on top of electric and/or in the double-lead style. Yet another change is the incorporation of more varied material, ranging from gospel mixed with southern rock (”Ride”) to neofolk (the “Gasoline Alley”-sounding “This Time”) to country (”Gone to Memphis”). 

But wait, there’s more: Attentive listeners will notice a little nonbottleneck playing; there’s two nonblues covers, Elvis Presley’s “Burning Love” and Tony Joe White’s “As the Crow Flies”; and Sardinas backs off some on his screaming. He still likes to get aggressive, of course, as on opener “All I Need,” but it’s nice to see him spreading his musical wings and flying outside of roadhouse boogie territory.

Tracks
1. All I Need
2. Ride
3. Find My Heart
4. Gone To Memphis
5. It’s Nothin’ New
6. This Time
7. Just Like That
8. Burning Love
9. Wonderin’ Blues
10. Door To Diamonds
11. As The Crow Flies

Total time: 48:15

External Links
artist’s website
amazon.com 
iTunes Store

Tags: blues, country