Earle sings blues on new album

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Waterboys do musical archaeology

Justin Townes Earle, “The Saint of Lost Causes” (New West)

Justin Townes Earle is feeling bad, and his music has never been better.

On “The Saint of Lost Causes”, Earle inhabits a range of doleful, downcast characters who span our troubled land, from the cop killer on “Appalachian Nightmare” to the teen trying to escape bleak circumstances on “Over Alameda”.

There’s also considerable range to the music, but it all comes from the same wellspring. Earle does country blues (“Don’t Drink the Water”), jump blues (“Flint City Shake It”), a blues shuffle (“Ain’t Got No Money”) and 12-resto swing (“Pacific Northwestern Blues”).

The titles tell the tale, and there’s pain from start (the title cut) to finish (the lonely lament “Talking to Myself”). But not everything is a downer – “Mornings in Memphis” finds beauty in the moment, and “Say Baby” is a spirited two-chord come-on.

Earle’s backstory includes a nomadic youth, delinquency and addiction, and he convincingly fills the roles he has created. He’s in fine voice, with a mix of verve and vulnerability and the phrasing of a great storyteller. The excellent supporting cast is led by bassist Adam Bednarik, who co-produced with Earle, and guitarist Joe V. McMahan.

The state of the union is not pretty, but it has inspired Earle’s best album.

The Waterboys, “Where the Action Is” (Cooking Vinyl)

The liner notes to the Waterboys’ latest album credit frontman Mike Scott for vocals, guitar, keyboards, bass – and “archaeology”. And “Where the Action Is” does indeed offer an entertaining survey of music history in 10 songs.

The title track, which opens the album, is a bracing cover of Robert Parker’s 1960s soul gem with updated lyrics. “You can fool the whole world with just one tweet,” Scott sings. The next cut advances the focus a decade with “London Mick”, a rollicking autobiographical tribute to the Clash’s Mick Jones.

There are swinging salutes to R&B, and mashups bridging genres and generations. Scott pairs hip-hop verses with a Beatles-style chorus on the sunny “Take Me There I Will Follow You”, and he puts 18th century lyrics to a 21st century rhythm track on “Then She Made the Lasses O”.

Most ambitious is the closing “Piper at the Gates of Dawn”, inspired by Kenneth Grahame’s 1908 novel “The Wind in the Willows”. For nearly nine minutes Scott speaks over a simple piano pattern as he describes an enchanting vision. It’s Scottish folk reminiscent of the Waterboys’ wonderful 2011 album, “An Appointment With Mr Yeats”.

On “Where the Action Is”, the best archaeology is self-referential.

Also:

LOS ANGELES: In the seven years since Whitney Houston’s death, there has been relatively little of the asset-exploitation that usually follows the passing of a music icon, apart from a smattering of previously unreleased recordings, a pair of harrowing documentaries and a lot of unflattering press.

But according to an article in the New York Times, the estate is now “open for business,” according to executor Pat Houston, and has pacted a deal with publishing/management company Primary Wave for a hologram tour, an album of unreleased material, a musical and more. According to the report, Primary Wave will acquire 50 percent of the estate’s assets – including the singer’s royalties from music and film, merchandising, and the right to exploit her name and likeness – in a deal that values the estate at $14 million.

“It’s been quite emotional for the past seven years,” said Pat Houston, Whitney’s sister-in-law and former manager. “But now it’s about being strategic.”

First up is the hologram tour, which will feature the late singer’s image accompanied by her original backing band, including Whitney’s brother (and Pat Houston’s husband) Gary. Pat Houston, who managed Whitney’s career from the early 2000s, is the estate’s sole executor, with the singer’s brothers, Gary and TK, and mother Cissy as the beneficiaries. Also in the works are an album containing outtakes from her 1985 debut album, a Broadway musical and a “Vegas-style spectacle”. For the present, however, “The hologram has taken precedence over everything,” she said.

Pat stressed that despite the personal chaos depicted in the documentaries and the tabloid press, Whitney was not struggling financially at the time of her death. “She had money when she died,” Pat Houston said. “It wasn’t multimillions, like everyone thought, but she wasn’t broke.”

Primary Wave has moved aggressively into the catalog business since its founding in 2006, and works with assets from Smokey Robinson, Bob Marley, Def Leppard and Kenny Logins. And despite the controversy that has surrounded hologram tours featuring deceased icons – which include Amy Winehouse, Frank Zappa, Ronnie James Dio and many others – Pat Houston says the effort is about reclaiming Whitney’s legacy. The singer’s final decade was marred by substance abuse, discord surrounding her troubled marriage to singer Bobby Brown, and subpar albums and concert performances.

“Before she passed, there was so much negativity around the name; it wasn’t about the music anymore,” Pat Houston said. “People had forgotten how great she was. They let all the personal things about her life outweigh why they fell in love with her in the first place.” (Agencies)

By Steven Wine

This news has been read 6088 times!