JACKSON, Miss. — Bobby Rush’s new Down in Louisiana, out February 19, 2013 on Deep Rush Productions through Thirty Tigers, is the work of a funky fire-breathing legend. Its 11 songs revel in the grit, grind and soul that’s been the blues innovator’s trademark since the 1960s, when he stood shoulder to shoulder on the stages of Chicago with Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Little Walter and other giants.

Of course, it’s hard to recognize a future giant when he’s standing among his mentors. But five decades later Down in Louisiana’s blend of deep roots, eclectic arrangements and raw modern production is clearly the stuff of towering artistry.

“This album started in the swamps and the juke joints, where my music started, and it’s also a brand new thing,” says the Grammy-nominated adopted son of Jackson, Mississippi. “Fifty years ago I put funk together with down-home blues to create my own style. Now, with Down in Louisiana, I’ve done the same thing with Cajun, reggae, pop, rock and blues, and it all sounds only like Bobby Rush.”

At 77, Rush still has an energy level that fits his name. He’s a prolific songwriter and one of the most vital live performers in the blues, able to execute daredevil splits on stage with the finesse of a young James Brown while singing and playing harmonica and guitar. Those talents have earned him multiple Blues Music Awards including Soul Blues Album of the Year, Acoustic Album of the Year, and, almost perennially, Soul Blues Male Artist of the Year.

As Down in Louisiana attests, he’s also one of the music’s finest storytellers, whether he’s evoking the thrill of finding love in “Down in Louisiana” — a song whose rhythmic accordion and churning beat evoke his Bayou State youth — or romping through one of his patented double-entendre funk rave-ups like “You’re Just Like a Dresser.”

Songs like the latter — with the tag line “You’re just like a dresser/Somebody’s always ramblin’ in your drawers” — and a stage show built around big-bottomed female dancers, ribald humor and hip-shaking grooves have made Rush today’s most popular blues attraction among African-American audiences. With more than 100 albums on his résumé, he’s the reigning king of the Chitlin’ Circuit, the network of clubs, theaters, halls and juke joints that first sprang up in the 1920s to cater to black audiences in the bad old days of segregation. A range of historic entertainers that includes Bessie Smith, Cab Calloway, B.B. King, Nat “King” Cole and Ray Charles emerged from this milieu. And Rush is proud to bear the torch for that tradition, and more.

“What I do goes back to the days of black vaudeville and Broadway, and — with my dancers on stage — even back to Africa,” Rush says. “It’s a spiritual thing, entwined with the deepest black roots, and with Down in Louisiana I’m taking those roots in a new direction so all kinds of audiences can experience my music and what it’s about.”

Compared to the big-band arrangements of the 13 albums Rush made while signed to Malaco Records, the Mississippi-based pre-eminent soul-blues label of the ’80s and ’90s, Down In Louisiana is a stripped down affair. The album ignited 18 months ago when Rush and producer Paul Brown, who’s played keyboards in Rush’s touring band, got together at Brown’s Nashville-based Ocean Soul Studios to build songs from the bones up.

“Everything started with just me and my guitar,” Rush explains. “Then Paul created the arrangements around what I’d done. It’s the first time I made an album like that and it felt really good.” Rush plans to tour behind the disc, his debut on Thirty Tigers, with a similar-sized group.

Down in Louisiana is spare on Rush’s usual personnel, — Brown on keys, drummer Pete Mendillo, guitarist Lou Rodriguez and longtime Rush bassist Terry Richardson — but doesn’t scrimp on funk. Every song is propelled by an appealing groove. Even the semi-autobiographical hard-times story “Tight Money,” which floats in on the call of Rush’s haunted harmonica, has a magnetic pull toward the dance floor. And “Don’t You Cry,” which Rush describes as “a new classic,” employs its lilting sway to evoke the vintage sound of electrified Delta blues à la Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters. Rush counts those artists, along with B.B King, Ray Charles and Sonny Boy Williamson II, as major influences.

“You hear all of these elements in me,” Rush allows, “but nobody sounds like Bobby Rush.”

Rush began absorbing the blues almost from his birth in Homer, Louisiana, on November 10, 1935. “My first guitar was a piece of wire nailed up on a wall with a brick keeping it raised up on top and a bottle keeping it raised on the bottom,” he relates. “One day the brick fell out and hit me in the head, so I reversed the brick and the bottle.

“I might be hard-headed,” he adds, chuckling, “but I’m a fast learner.”

Rush quickly moved on to an actual six-string and the harmonica. He started playing juke joints in his teens, wearing a fake mustache so owners would think him old enough to perform in their clubs. In 1953 his family relocated to Chicago, where his musical education shifted to hyperspeed under the spell of Waters, Wolf, Williamson and the rest of the big dogs on the scene. Rush ran errands for slide six-string king Elmore James and got guitar lessons from Howlin’ Wolf. He traded harmonica licks with Little Walter and begin sitting in with his heroes.

In the ’60s Rush became a bandleader in order to realize the fresh funky soul-blues sound that he was developing in his head.

“James Brown was just two years older than me, and we both focused on that funk thing, driving on that one-chord beat,” Rush explains. “But James put modern words to it. I was walking the funk walk and talking the countrified blues talk — with the kinds of stories and lyrics that people who grew up down South listening to John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf and bluesmen like that could relate to. And that’s been my trademark.”

After 1971’s percolating “Chicken Heads” became his first hit and cracked the R&B Top 40, Rush’s dedication increased. He relocated to Mississippi to be among the highest population of his core black blues-loving audience and put together a 12-piece touring ensemble. Record deals with Philadelphia International and Malaco came as his star rose, and his performances kept growing from the small juke joints where he’d started into nightclubs, civic auditoriums and, by the mid-’80s, Las Vegas casinos and the world’s most prominent blues festivals. Rush’s ascent was depicted in The Road to Memphis, a film co-starring B.B. King that was part of the 2003 PBS series Martin Scorsese Presents: The Blues.

In 2003 he established his own label, Deep Rush Productions, and has released nine titles under that imprint including his 2003 DVD+CD set Live At Ground Zero and 2007’s solo Raw. That disc led to his current relationship with Thirty Tigers, which distributed Raw and his two most recent albums, 2009’s Blind Snake and 2011’s Show You A Good Time (which took Best Soul Blues Album of the year that’s the 2012 BMAs), before signing him as an artist for Down in Louisiana.

Although his TV appearances, gigs at Lincoln Center and numerous Blues Music Awards attest to his acceptance by all blues fans, Rush hopes that the blend of the eclectic, inventive and down-home on Down in Louisiana will help further expand his audience.

“But no matter how much I cross over, whether it’s to a larger white audience or to college listeners or fans of Americana, I’ll never cross out who I am and where I’ve come from,” Rush promises. “My music’s always gonna be funky and honest, and it’s always gonna sound like Bobby Rush.”

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Marley’s Ghost — a virtuoso aggregation composed of singer/multi-instrumentalists Dan Wheetman, Jon Wilcox, Mike Phelan, Ed Littlefield Jr. and Jerry Fletcher — celebrates its 25th anniversary with the scintillating roots-music tour de force Jubilee (Sage Arts, street date: June 5, 2012).

The album, produced by legendary Nashville cat Cowboy Jack Clement and recorded at the city’s venerable Sound Emporium, which Clement built, features guest performances from Emmylou Harris, John Prine, Old Crow Medicine Show, Marty Stuart, Larry Campbell, Byron House and Don Heffington.

“One of the things that we were really clear on with this record was that we wanted it to be a Marley’s Ghost album with friends sitting in, not guest stars with us as the backing band,” Wheetman explains. “And it worked.”

Like its nine predecessors, Jubilee is wildly eclectic, its 13 tracks drawn, with unerring taste, from the songbooks of Kris Kristofferson (“This Old Road”), Levon Helm (“Growin’ Trade”), Bobby and Shirley Womack (“It’s All Over Now”), Katy Moffatt and Tom Russell (“Hank and Audrey”), John Prine (“Unwed Fathers”), Butch Hancock (“If You Were a Bluebird”) and Paul Siebel (the closing “She Made Me Lose My Blues”), along with the traditional “Diamond Joe.” These deftly interpreted tunes blend seamlessly with the six originals on the album.

Marley’s Ghost is nothing less than a national treasure, the capable inheritors of the archetypal Americana blueprint drawn up by The Band. As the L.A. Weekly aptly put it, “This West Coast [group] deftly, and frequently daffily, dashes across decades of American music to create a sound that’s steeped in tradition but never bogged down by traditionalism.” These guys can sing and play anything with spot-on feel, from reggae (hence the double-entendre moniker) to blues to stone country, which is what they’ve been doing — to the ongoing delight of a fervent cult that includes many of their fellow musicians — throughout their first quarter century as a working unit.

“The band has always been eclectic, and that’s one of the reasons we’ve stayed together for this long,” Wheetman explains. “I’ve said this before, but instead of having to be in a Delta blues band, an a cappella singing group, a country band, a reggae band, and being a singer/songwriter, I’m in one band and we just do all that. It’s very convenient.”

When they started thinking about this album project more than a year ago, the band members agreed to each bring songs to the table that they wanted Marley’s Ghost to record. “That’s the way the band has generally operated,” says Wheetman, “and then some things naturally stick.

I brought ‘The Blues Are Callin’’ for Mike because I thought it would be a good duet song, although he wound up singing it by himself — and he sang the shit out of it, by the way. And when I heard Kris Kristofferson’s last album a couple of years ago, I thought the title song would be great for Jon, so I brought that one along as well. Jon brought ‘Growin’ Trade,’ which Eddie ended up singing.”

Phelan describes “Growin’ Trade,” written by Larry Campbell and Levon Helm, as “an emblematic Band song that was never recorded by The Band. Loving The Band and being able to make something that sounds like The Band without imitating The Band is kinda tricky, and I think we pulled it off with this one, so we’re really proud of that.” Wheetman’s “South for a Change” has a Bob Wills feel, while Phelan was thinking of Buck Owens when “Lonely Night” came to him.

The new record is the band’s second straight project with Clement, who turned 80 last year. Clement first heard Marley’s Ghost in 2009, when a mutual friend brought him to a performance at Nashville’s Douglas Corner. “Afterwards, Cowboy came up to tell us how much he liked the band,” Phelan recalls. “He said, ‘You got a lot of bang,’ whatever that means. It was love at first sight all around. He liked that we were a real band and not a bunch of session musicians who get together for one project. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but he knows a lot of those guys; he doesn’t know a lot of real bands who play and sing together and have a sound. About a month later, he sent us a letter — not an email — saying that if we wanted to come down to his place, he’d really like to make a record with us. We thought about that for two or three seconds — ‘Let’s see, do we want to make a record with a living legend, the guy who produced Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Roy Orbison and Carl Perkins? Okay.’ So this was a unique opportunity for us to do something with him while he’s still at the height of his powers.”

They first worked with Clement on 2010’s Ghost Town, which in turn followed 2006’s Van Dyke Parks-produced Spooked. “Working with Van Dyke was like grad school in producing, says Phelan, “whereas Cowboy is a much more subtle guy. He’d be sitting there in the control room with these gigantic speakers cranked up listening to us do a take, and we’d hear him like the voice of God over the talkback, ‘Liked that one.’ Or he’d go, ‘That kinda sucked. You got a better one in ya.’ He guided the process, but not in any way similar to what Van Dyke had done. So it was a wildly different experience. But when you ride out the whole process, you can see why he’s got so many gold records on his walls.”

“Jack brings a state of mind, a perspective about why you’re there in the first place,” Wheetman says of Clement’s production approach. “Then he lets things happen. When he started working at Sun, everything was cut live, and it was all about feel, not precision, and that’s how he still approaches it. And as you get basic tracks done, he’s got ideas about what to add. Jack really wanted Jerry on piano for the basic tracks because he’s such a great piano player, and up to this point, he’d been playing drums and piano at the same time, believe it or not. So we asked our old friend Don Heffington, who played on Spooked, to play the drums on the album. And I generally play bass in the band, but we asked Byron House come in and play bass on the sessions.”

According to Phelan, they brought in House and Heffington to serve as the rhythm section on the album “because we wanted that feel you get when the whole band plays together. We wanted to get as much in the live session as possible and change as little as possible to the record — it just feels better that way.”

Marley’s Ghost had brought in guests on several of their previous records — “friends who happened to be in the neighborhood,” according to Wheetman — but nothing approaching the all-star cast that graces Jubilee. “That was all Jack,” says Wheetman. “As we were doing ‘Unwed Fathers,’ he said, ‘That one needs a girl’s voice —it needs an angel on there.’ So he called Emmylou. Marty Stuart used to live at Jack’s house back when he was still playing mandolin with Johnny Cash. And Jack produced a couple of records for John Prine. We had sent Prine a CD of ‘This Old Road,’ and he really did his homework — he came in ready to go. They were all incredibly wonderful to work with — really giving and friendly. With every one of them, it was, ‘Is that what you want?’

“Emmy was in the studio trying to work out the harmony part for ‘Unwed Fathers,’ and because I’ve got a low voice, she was figuring out where to put it in her range to make it work. She said, ‘I’ll be out here ’til the cows come home,’ and I got on the talkback and asked her, ‘What time do the cows come home?’ She said, ‘As soon as I get this part!’”

The lone non-Nashville guest was Woodstock-based guitarist and fiddle player Larry Campbell, a former key member of Bob Dylan’s band, Levon Helm’s producer and musical director, and the co-writer, with Levon, of “Growin’ Trade,” one of the highlights of Helm’s Grammy-winning 2009 LP Electric Dirt. “We wanted some fiddle and some electric guitar on a couple of things, so we invited Larry down,” says Dan. “He came into the studio and cranked for two day and just killed it. He played hellacious guitar on ‘Hank and Audrey,’ and he was great fun to work with.”

With each album, the band’s mastery of all manner of roots forms becomes more captivating, and more seamless in its variety. “When you’ve been together for 25 years, there’s an approach, and that just automatically puts a certain spin on everything you do,” Wheetman points out. “One thing that’s always been important in the band is that you do what you can to serve the song, and that creates a cohesiveness from song to song.”

“We’re five singers who don’t think genres mean much,” says Phelan. “If you connect with the song and the song connects with you, that’s what’s important, and that’s a real core belief of the band. When I go to a performance, I want to hear passion; I want to hear somebody up there doing it because they can’t not do it. That’s what we’re going for with everything we tackle. We have so many diverse feels, and we can pull them off in an authentic way — and after all this time, we’re playing the best we ever have.”

One listen to Jubilee will confirm that assertion. In every note, and every measured silence, you can hear the miles they’ve traveled together, the jaw-dropping closeness they’ve attained, and the magical place where the men of Marley’s Ghost now reside.

About the Album Cover

“I suggested a Thomas Hart Benton piece for the cover and found that the band loved his work,” says manager Michael Nash. “The Sources of Country Music combines all the elements we were looking for — Benton’s trademark style coupled with the depiction of musicians and a distinct Americana vibe. It speaks to all the musical sources of American roots music, and in that respect we felt it mirrored well what Marley's Ghost is all about. This was Benton’s final work. One story is that he died standing in front of it, as it was never signed. It now resides at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, appropriately enough. That ties into Cowboy Jack and where we recorded the album. All told, a perfect fit.”

__________________________

T. Tex Edwards gets "Intexicated!", El Pathos share the "Hate & Love"

The T. Tex Edwards retrospective has arrived...

T. Tex Edwards "remains a pioneering, under-appreciated, and often neglected chronicler of the offbeat and eccentric traditions of country rock'n'roll," notes All Music Guide. "Intexicated!" remedies any neglect of this wild and wooly Texas musical treasure with 19 collected odds, sods, unreleased recordings, demos, outtakes and offbeat gems from throughout his distinctively different musical career spent kicking up some seriously cool and twisted dust from the roots rocking underground. Featuring work under his own name as well as such T. Tex outfits as The Loafin' Hyenas, Tex & The SaddleTramps and The Swingin' Cornflake Killers are such top T. Tex moments as renditions of "Psycho" and "Lee Harvey was A Friend of Mine," his classic "Move It" (also recorded by The LeRoi Brothers), takes on Dave Davies' Kinks hit "Death of a Clown" and "Baby's Got A Gun" by The Only Ones, and to wrap it all up, a demo of a commercial Tex cut for the Chili's restaurant chain. It's an intexicating collection from an artist of uncommonly cool off-kilter brilliance.

El Pathos debut with "Hate & Love"

With their powerhouse debut album, Hate & Love, El Pathos "may have nailed their very own Exile on Main St. on the first try," hails Rank N Review. Strong words indeed, and proven true by a listen to what plays like a definitive 2012 rock disc that stands on the shoulders of giants to cast its own long shadow. With a line-up that includes original members of The Dicks, Offenders, SubPop moto-rockers Catbutt and other notable underground bands of recent decades, it's tempting to call Austin-based El Pathos a supergroup of Texas Punk royalty. But what's truly at work here is six veterans uniting to create a group whose whole is far greater than the sum of its parts and their collective history. The result is music that is as hard edged and soulful as any rock'n'roll classic. It's no frills stuff with gripping moments both down'n'dirty and grand'n'glorious, just as the best rock music always has and should. Expect to see this on discerning year's best lists and endure well into the future as a timeless shot of rocking energy and passion.

Churchwood stays creepy with "Just The Two Of Us"

"Dangerous, foreboding, in-your-face," is how Lone Star Music describes Churchwood, whose 2011 debut album won raves for how this Austin-based band "take the essence of primitive blues and mutate it into something new," as the Santa Fe New Mexican observes. This prolific, powerful, creative and highly original group now quickly return with a sizzling 7" inch single (with a download card of the full four-song EP included) that further expands the sound of what Punk Globe calls "the crazy, thinking man's blues band." Drawing from deep delta roots, rock'n'roll energy and the progressive musical adventurism forged by the late Captain Beefheart, Churchwood update the blues for the 21st Century and beyond. The stunning lyrical worldplay of singer and published poet Joe Doerr is surrounded by the dazzling swirl of inventive guitar playing by Bill Anderson and Billysteve Korpi and then hammered home by a piledriver rhythm section. It's music that's "rude, literate, bilingual, unpredictable, and addictive," raves the Austin Chronicle. And Just The Two Of Us continues to deliver that in spades.

Chief Fuzzer drops "TRB"

From behind the green light Chief Fuzzer has arrived to shake and thump 2012 and the years to come. This swampy, pedal pushing trio from San Marcos, Texas simultaneously channel ZZ Top, Blue Cheer, the rootsier side of Queens Of The Stone Age and your favorite stoner metal band. Drizzle it with psychedelic psauce, inject a dose of Disraeli Gears-era English Blues, turn up the guitar and unleash the bass and drums and you've got their debut EP, Transcendental Road Blues, issued as a 7-inch vinyl single with a download card of the full five-song EP included. It's a bracing first blast that previews a full album coming later this year. Deftly balanced on the fulcrum of classic and right on time for today, Chief Fuzzer meld rock from a garage large enough to house a big rig with a potency that plays like it belongs on an arena stage, and have been rapidly gaining a following throughout Central Texas.

__________________________________

More Kickstarter: New Music Distribution Model

Marshall Crenshaw Pioneers Subscription Download

Loyal fans help surpass Kickstarter goal, ensuring success for new model. First EP of the series, I Don’t See You Laughing Now, set for January 22, 2013 release with November 23 exclusive to brick-and-mortar retail on Record Store Day’s Back to Black Friday.

NEW YORK, N.Y. — “I wanted to think of a different way of working that would inspire me and keep me motivated,” Marshall Crenshaw says of his newest endeavor: a subscription-only service that addresses the recent seismic changes in the music-industry landscape by cutting out the record-company middle man to distribute his new recordings directly to fans.

The subscription service, which the Platinum, Gold, and Silver award-winning, Grammy and Golden Globe nominated songwriter and recording artist recently launched via a successful Kickstarter funding campaign, will provide fans with a steady stream of new Marshall Crenshaw music via a series of exclusive three-song 10-inch, 45 RPM vinyl EPs on Addie-Ville Records, six of which the artist plans to release over a two-year period. In addition to the vinyl discs, subscribers will also receive a download card for digital versions of the EP tracks. These recordings are available from Crenshaw’s web site: <http://marshallcrenshaw.com>

Not only did Crenshaw develop the subscription-based EP series via Kickstarter but actually surpassed his Kickstarter goal. The subscription series has already proven a success: Half of its entire print run has been committed to distribution through Thinkindie Distribution for Record Store Day’s Back to Black Friday (November 23) — arguably the most important day of the year for vinyl connoisseurs. Add to that the loyal Marshall Crenshaw fans who have invested in the project on Kickstarter and will receive their early copy of the official January 23, 2013 release date for the debut EP, I Don’t See You Laughing Now.

Each EP consists entirely of newly recorded, never-before-released material, encompassing a new original Crenshaw composition, a classic cover tune, and a new reworking of a time-honored favorite.

“I really do think that vinyl sounds best, and that playing a vinyl record is still the optimum listening experience,” Crenshaw asserts. “And with the sound quality that you get at 45 rpm, I think that these things are going to deliver the goods, sonically.”

The first subscription EP’s A-side is the brand-new Crenshaw number “I Don’t See You Laughing Now,” recorded with longtime cohorts Andy York (John Mellencamp, Ian Hunter), and Graham Maby (Joe Jackson, They Might Be Giants). Crenshaw says, "The song is mostly based on a particular disturbing documentary that I saw a few years ago. It's pretty much a rant directed at a composite of villains; at least they're villains to me." The record’s double B-side features a memorable new reading of The Move’s 1971 post-apocalyptic anthem “No Time,” recorded with veteran New Jersey rocker and frequent Crenshaw collaborator Glen Burtnick; and a new version of “There She Goes Again,” whose original version appeared on Crenshaw’s eponymous 1982 debut album, recorded live with alt-country icons the Bottle Rockets.

The I Don’t See You Laughing Now EP will have a two-tiered release, shipping to brick and mortar retail and Kickstarter supporters on November 23, 2012, and available online on January 22, 2013.

All three tracks were mastered for maximum awesomeness by legendary engineer Greg Calbi, who will handle mastering duties on the entire EP series.

Earlier this year, fans made the subscription project a reality by pledging more than $33,000 to Crenshaw’s Kickstarter campaign, above and beyond Crenshaw’s original goal, in increments ranging from $1 to $5000.

Crenshaw is excited that his new subscription model allows him to embrace his love for singles, while allowing him to make music on his own terms, free of record-company politics and the emotional baggage that routinely accompanies the making of full-length albums.

“I’ve always put a great deal of care into the albums I’ve made,” Crenshaw states. “But as a listener, I’ve always been a singles guy and an individual-tracks guy. I’m looking forward to creating a steady output of music in small batches, rather than being stuck in a cave for months and stockpiling a whole bunch of music and dumping it out all at once. Now, when I finish something, I get to put it out, instead of having to wait until I’ve got 12 more.”

Over the course of a career that’s spanned three decades, 13 albums and hundreds of songs, Marshall Crenshaw’s musical output has maintained a consistent fidelity to the qualities of melody, craftsmanship and passion, and his efforts have been rewarded with the devotion of a broad and remarkably loyal fan base.

After an early break playing John Lennon in a touring company of the Broadway musical Beatlemania, the Michigan-bred musician began his recording career with the now-legendary indie single “Something’s Gonna Happen,” on Alan Betrock’s seminal Shake label. His growing fame in his adopted hometown of New York City helped to win Crenshaw a deal with Warner Bros. Records, which released his self-titled 1982 debut album. With such classics as “Someday, Someway” and “Cynical Girl,” that LP established Crenshaw as one of his era’s preeminent tunesmiths — a stature that was confirmed by subsequent albums Field Day, Downtown, Mary Jean & 9 Others, Good Evening, Life’s Too Short, Miracle of Science, #447, What’s in the Bag? and Jaggedland.

Along the way, Crenshaw’s compositions have been successfully covered by a broad array of performers, including Bette Midler, Kelly Willis, Robert Gordon, Ronnie Spector, Marti Jones and the Gin Blossoms, with whom Crenshaw co-wrote the Top 10 single “Til I Hear It From You.” He’s also provided music for several film soundtracks, appeared in the films La Bamba (as Buddy Holly) and Peggy Sue Got Married, and was nominated for a Grammy and a Golden Globe award for penning the title track for the film comedy Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. Crenshaw also authored a book about rock movies entitled Hollywood Rock ’n’ Roll, and has assembled compilation albums of the music of Scott Walker and the Louvin Brothers, as well as the acclaimed country & western collection Hillbilly Music . . . Thank God! Since 2011, he has hosted his own radio show, The Bottomless Pit, on New York’s WFUV, Saturday nights at 10 p.m. ET.

But it’s writing songs and making records that remain at the center of Marshall Crenshaw’s creative life, and he’s distinctly excited about the potential of his new subscription service. “I still think that recorded music is a great art form, I still love it and believe in it, and I’m still always striving for excellence. The fact that the Kickstarter thing was a success, and that people responded so well to the concept, felt like a good validation of that.”

“This is a really inspiring situation,” Crenshaw concludes, “and I think that it’s gonna be a good way for me to proceed into the future.”

Proper Records

U.K. publisher issues album retrospectives and books on music and entertainment. Click on any of the following screenshots to go to the Proper Records Website.

Sonny Landreth's Elemental Journey

BREAUX BRIDGE, La. — Sonny Landreth’s 11th album, bearing the fittingly evocative title Elemental Journey, is something very different from the Louisiana slide wizard. Released on his own Landfall label on May 22, 2012, the new CD is Landreth’s first all-instrumental effort and his most adventurous work to date.

“From day one on the guitar, many genres of music have had an impact on me” says Landreth. “For these recordings, I drew from some of those influences that I hadn’t gone to on previous albums with my vocals. Trading off the lyrics this time, I focused solely on the instrumental side and all this music poured out. Then I asked some extraordinary musicians to help me layer the tracks in hopes of inspiring a lot of imagery for the listeners.”

Like its predecessor, From the Reach (2008), Elemental Journey features guest stars, in this case handpicked by Landreth for what each could bring to a particular aural canvas. Joe Satriani delivers an astonishing, ferocious solo on the audacious opener “Gaia Tribe,” the returning virtuoso Eric Johnson casts his seductive spell on the dusky dreamscape “Passionola” and steel drum master Robert Greenidge brings his magical overtones to the balmy, swaying “Forgotten Story.”

Drummers Brian Brignac, Doug Belote and Mike Burch, each of whom Landreth has worked with in the past, lend their particular feels to various tracks, working with Sonny’s longtime band members, bass player Dave Ranson and keyboardist Steve Conn. Tony Daigle, another key member of Sonny’s team, engineered and mixed the album, while Landreth produced.

“One of the things I’ve always loved about a good instrumental song is that it can be more impressionistic and abstract,” Landreth notes. “Though melody is always important, it’s even more significant with an instrumental. So what I wanted to achieve was something more thematic with lots of melodies and with a chordal chemistry that was harmonically rich. That’s when I got the idea to treat the arrangements with more layering and to have the melodies interweave like conversations. I also wanted it to be more diverse, to not adhere to any categories. I wanted to leave it wide open to possibility.”

The album blossoms forth with unexpected yet seamless juxtapositions. For example, Spanish moss atmospherics enwrap visceral bursts of rock and jazz on “Gaia Tribe,” and Sonny’s slide swoops and soars over a Jamaican-inspired groove with Greenidge’s Trinidadian pans on “Forgotten Story,” while “Wonderide” finds zydeco romancing classical.

“On ‘Wonderide,’ you can hear some of Clifton Chenier’s Creole influences and then it morphs into a classical motif with the strings playing more complex changes,” Sonny points out. “When I started experimenting with it, I realized that the tempo for a good zydeco groove could easily transition into the fingerpicking style of phrasing found in classical guitar music. Then it was a matter of adding the strings to give it more depth with tension and release, expanding the overall sound.”

Strings play a featured role on five of the pieces. The string arrangements by Sam Broussard — moonlighting from his gig as guitarist in Steve Riley & the Mamou Playboys — are played by members of Lafayette’s own Acadiana Symphony Orchestra, conducted by its music director, Mariusz Smolij, a world-renowned maestro. The strings are employed in a particularly inventive way wherever they appear on Elemental Journey, frequently embellishing the tunings that Landreth uses for slide guitar — “sometimes in unison like a horn section, sometimes as a legitimate quartet or full blown orchestra,” Sonny explains.

The concept occurred to him after Smolij invited him to perform with the Acadiana Symphony Orchestra for a 2005 Christmas show for which he played Bach’s Cantata 140. “It was something I’d always wanted to do,” says Sonny. “I’d played the trumpet in school band and orchestra from grade school through college, so I was exposed to classical music and jazz, but I’d never played anything like that on slide guitar! So that really fired me up, and it became the backdrop for some of the classical influences on this album.”

There’s a particularly thrilling moment in the first track, “Gaia Tribe”, that occurs when two seemingly antithetical elements lock in an embrace. “When I first heard Joe’s solo,” Sonny recalls, “I went, ‘This is incredible! I love it but it just comes up out of nowhere — how am I gonna make it fit?’ After talking to Joe, I realized this was a great opportunity to raise the bar creatively. That’s when I got the idea to double the surprise factor and have the strings make their first appearance for the album in the middle of his solo. The next thing I know, a song that had started out as kind of a simple surf thing had become this wild ride of an epic piece and one of my favorite productions.”

Landreth’s music has always been evocative, a vibrant mixture of indigenous sounds and images informed by Delta blues and Faulkner alike. But here, by eschewing lyrics and vocals, he’s located something especially pure and unfettered. “What I’d hoped to end up creating was sonic stories without words,” he says. “And because there are no lyrics, it’s really important to connect on an emotional level. All of the titles for these songs have meaning for me — some of them are impressions from post-Katrina, Rita, the Gulf Spill, friends of mine and their experiences — so that’s part of it too. Still, I want listeners to feel something that resonates with them personally. I’ve always tried to make music that engages you on a deeper level that way.”

Prepare to be engaged . . . and transported.- Cary Baker

_______________________________

Musical Vision: A Sonny Landreth Sample►

Relating to the story in the right column on Sonny Landreth's scheduled May release of his new instrumental LP, this video below captures, as well as any have, the unique playing technique that Landreth has invented for himself. He combines the finger-picking style of Chet Atkins and the slide stylings of Duane Allman with hammer techniques a la Eddie Van Halen and his own behind the slide chording and melodic approach. Landreth is able to achieve a vast array of sound and feel ranging from pyrotechnics to moody, ambience. There is nothing else out there really like what Sonny Landreth does, even in a business filled with competent slide guitarists. Landreth is a one-off player, a visionary on his own path in musical exploration.

_____________________

WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?

PAUL THORN TURNS TO TOP SONGWRITERS ON NEW CD

Album, out May 8, features songs by Lindsey Buckingham, Buddy & Julie Miller, Elvin Bishop, Rick Danko, Allen Toussaint, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Eli “Paperboy” Reed and others

TUPELO, Miss. — For his forthcoming album Paul Thorn, who is certainly no slouch as a songwriter himself, turned to some of his favorite songwriters. The new release, titled What the Hell Is Goin’ On? and due out on Perpetual Obscurity/Thirty Tigers on May 8, boasts writers both well-known and less well-known: Lindsey Buckingham, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Allen Toussaint, Buddy & Julie Miller, Elvin Bishop, Rick Danko of the Band, Paul Rodgers and the rest of the band Free, Donnie Fritts and Billy Lawson, Wild Bill Emerson, Foy Vance, Eli ‘Paperboy’ Reed, and the trio of Big Al Anderson, Shawn Camp and Pat McLaughlin.

Thorn has developed a deep set of musical influences. But these influences didn’t come about until he was fully grown and out of the house. His father was a Pentecostal preacher, and there was only one kind of music heard in the Thorn home: gospel.

“Gospel music was everything in our household,” he says, “My sisters played piano, my dad played guitar and my mom played accordion. I started off playing the drums — on a Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket with a wooden spoon — and later picked up the guitar. Being from Tupelo, I went to the same music school that Elvis Presley attended. By that, I mean that our family visited the white Pentecostal churches and the black Pentecostal churches, and the music at both was awesome. The white folks sang in a country & Western style and the black folks had a more rhythm & blues approach.”

Paul would not have likely chanced upon a song recorded by The Band, Free or Buckingham-Nicks while growing up. “You see, we were not allowed to buy or listen to secular music, although I kept two records in my closet that I would sneak and listen to when my parents were gone,” he explains, citing the smuggled titles: Huey Lewis & the News’ Picture This and Elton John’s Greatest Hits. “The religious authorities of that time told us that if you play a rock ’n’ roll record backwards there were hidden satanic instructions for all of Lucifer’s followers. I tried it and the only words I could make out sounded like ‘eat your laundry on Tuesday.’ I started listening to and absorbing worldly music after I left home at the age of 18.”

At 18, Thorn had a lot of catching up to do, and immersed himself in the worlds of rock ’n’ roll, R&B, blues and country. What the Hell Is Going On? is a microcosm of his journey.

Among the album’s 12 tracks, Elvin Bishop sits in on guitar on the title track he wrote, while Delbert McClinton lends vocals to Wild Bill Emerson’s “Bull Mountain Bridge.” Thorn captures the Texas swamp feel of Ray Wylie Hubbard’s “Snake Farm” and makes Southern rock anthems of Buckingham-Nicks’ “Don’t Let Me Down Again” and Free’s “Walk in My Shadow.” He redefines The Band’s “Small Town Talk,” penned by Rick Danko, while paying homage to a venerable R&B songwriter, Allen Toussaint (“Wrong Number”) and a young American soul/blues acolyte, Eli “Paperboy” Reed (“Take My Love With You”).

“I started realizing that there are a lot of great tunes that I love by other writers out there,” he says, explaining how an album of covers came to be. “This project is basically me and my band putting our own spin on some of them. After so many albums of self-penned songs, I wanted to take a break from myself, do something different, and just have fun.”

Thorn continues to tour while he sets up the new album, headlining some dates and co-billed with Ruthie Foster on others. He’s also signed on to perform some significant festivals: July 1 at FitzGerald’s American Music Festival just outside Chicago; July 3 at Milwaukee’s lakefront SummerFest, and October 5 at Helena, Ark.’s historic King Biscuit Blues Festival.

________________

In October 2011, at the age of 91, Ravi Shankar invited his long-time tabla accompanist, Tanmoy Bose, to his home in Encinitas, California for an informal recording session. Over four days in Shankar’s living room, they recorded seven different ragas. The resulting music is pure Shankar, combining his deep musical experience and brilliant technique with the passion he brings to live performance. Part one of two will be released on Shankar's own label (East Meets West) on April 10.

Real Gone Music Reissues

Little Willie John, Cowboy Copas, Mel McDaniel, The Ad Libs

LOS ANGELES, Calif. — Real Gone Music will issue Little Willie John’s Complete Hit Singles A’s and B’s, a definitive compilation of the influential R&B singer’s King Records sides as well as King-Starday label mate Cowboy Copas’ Complete Hit Singles A’s & B’s, featuring 30 of the country legends’ sides from 1946-63, both slated for April 17, 2012 street date. On May 1, doo-woppers the Ab Libs will be celebrated on The Complete Blue Cat Recordings. And two country hit-makers from the ’70s and ’70s, Mel McDaniel and Eddie Rabbit, will be reissued — McDaniel with Baby’s Got Her Blue Jeans On — His Original Capitol Hits, and Rabbitt with 13 Original #1 Hits. Finally, Real Gone continues its acclaimed Grateful Dead Dick’s Picks reissues with Volume 30 and Volume 31.

Little Willie John was a genuine architect of soul. Along with Clyde McPhatter, Ray Charles and Sam Cooke, the visionary singer stood at the forefront of fusing gospel intensity to rhythm and blues tradition. And had he not died inside a Walla Walla prison at the age of 30, his name would likely be etched in the same soul pantheon as his peers. In his short career, Willie cut a string of seminal sides for Cincinnati-based King Records from 1955-61 that rank among the finest R&B ever waxed. As Motown legend Lamont Dozier says in Bill Dahl’s notes to this collection, “Willie John was just an extraordinary talent. He knew how to touch you with a song, and he knew how to raise the hairs on the back of your neck.” Real Gone Music will offer the most comprehensive collection of this overlooked soul superstar ever assembled: two CDs, 32 tracks that include every chart hit plus its accompanying, seldom-compiled B-side. And the B-sides are where some of the real fun is: joining such landmark R&B recordings as “Fever,” “All Around the World,” “Need Your Love So Bad” and “Home at Last” on this collection are such crackling tunes as “Spasms,” “Let’s Rock While the Rockin’s Good” and “Do You Love Me” (recorded with Little Richard’s band the Upsetters).

To many, Lloyd Estel “Cowboy” Copas is just a footnote to the Patsy Cline legend, having perished in the same plane crash that claimed her life and that of Hawkshaw Hawkins; but what many folks don’t realize is that Cope had 14 hits during his lifetime while Patsy had but nine. Clearly, the intervening years have burnished and magnified Patsy’s legend; they’ve also unjustly neglected this early Grand Ole Opry stalwart. Now, with Complete Hit Singles A’s & B’s, Real Gone has assembled the most comprehensive Cowboy Copas collection to date: two CDs, 30 tracks including every hit and its accompanying, rarely‐if‐ever‐compiled B‐sides. Cope got his start in Pee Wee King’s band, and you can hear a bit of that bandleader’s freewheeling approach to country in these songs, among many other influences. In fact, as Colin Escott writes in the accompanying liner notes, “His records were so personable and so unlike any others from that day and time. Not honky tonk, not bluegrass, not Western swing, not hillbilly, not pop crossover, they could be labeled Cowboy Copas records.” This Cowboy Copas collection is the one to have — essential country spanning the years from 1946-63, the year Cope died.

On the heels of Real Gone’s well-received Red Bird Girls: Very First Time in True Stereo 1964-1966 comes another incredible find for doo-wop and girl-group fans: the first-ever legitimate album devoted to the classic Blue Cat recordings by the legendary vocal group The Ad-Libs, featuring 24 tracks taken by producers Ron Furmanek and Ash Wells straight from the original master session tapes (again, another first) including five unreleased songs and nine unreleased alternate versions! And among those unreleased alternate versions are a full three newly discovered versions of their big hit “The Boy from New York City,” highlighted by an a cappella demo version that must be heard. Most tracks make their true stereo debut, while the 12-page booklet boasts great liner notes by James Moniz that offer insights from original Ad-Lib Norman Donegan, plus a foreword from Manhattan Transfer member Tim Hauser.

The late country legend Mel McDaniel scored a string of 41 chartmakers during the ’70s and ’80s, but there’s never been a hits collection worthy of the name until now. Twenty-one original Capitol sides from McDaniel appear on Baby’s Got Her Blue Jeans On — His Original Capitol Hits, including such good-time anthems as “Louisiana Saturday Night,” “Big Ole Brew” (Mel preferred to drink his beer rather than cry in it), “Let It Roll (Let It Rock),” “Stand Up” and, of course one of the great girl-watching songs of all time, “Baby’s Got Her Blue Jeans On.” McDaniel was one of the real bright lights of ’80s country, and Real Gone is proud to give him his due.

About Real Gone Music

Real Gone Music, formed and helmed by industry vets Gordon Anderson and Gabby Castellana, aims to establish itself as the most eclectic and prolific catalog and reissue label in the country. The label has announced distribution through by Razor & Tie. Anderson and Castellana each started businesses in 1993 — Collectors’ Choice Music and Hep Cat Records & Distribution, respectively — that became two of the most important outlets for buyers and sellers of vintage music recordings. Now, 18 years later, they have joined forces to launch Real Gone Music, a reissue label dedicated to serving both the collector community and the casual music fan with a robust release schedule combining big-name artists with esoteric cult favorites. Real Gone Music is a music company dedicated to combing the vaults for sounds that aren’t just gone — they’re REAL gone.