Featured Artist: Bettye Swann

-BETTYE SWANN-

Best known for her 1967 R&B chart-topper "Make Me Yours," Southern soul chanteuse Bettye Swann was born Betty Jean Champion in Shreveport, Louisiana on October 24, 1944. She first surfaced during the early 1960s as a member of the Fawns before mounting a solo career in 1964 with the Carolyn Franklin-penned "Don't Wait Too Long," the first of a series of Arthur Wright-produced singles for the independent Los Angeles label Money. "The Man That Said No" and "The Heartache Is Gone" followed in 1965, and two years later, Swann returned with the gorgeous "Make Me Yours," which also served as the title for her first full-length LP. 1967 saw the release of three more Money singles -- "Fall in Love With Me," "Don't Look Back," and "I Think I'm Falling in Love" -- while the next year heralded a leap to major label Capitol for "My Heart Is Closed for the Season." The follow-up, "Don't Touch Me," was the first single released from Swann's second long-player, The Soul View Now; Don't You Ever Get Tired of Hurting Me? followed in 1969, highlighted by the minor hit "Little Things Mean a Lot." After a one-off single for Fame, 1971's "I'm Just Living a Lie," Swann landed at Atlantic; her label debut, "Victim of a Foolish Heart," cracked the R&B Top 20 in 1972, and was revived over three decades later by blue-eyed soul upstart Joss Stone. Her next Atlantic effort, "I'd Rather Go Blind," was notable in large part for its B-side, a reading of Merle Haggard's "Today I Started Loving You Again," that proved Swann a superb interpreter of country-soul -- 1973's "Yours Until Tomorrow" was backed by another Nashville cover, this time Tammy Wynette's "Til I Get It Right." In 1974, she made a return to the lower rungs of the Billboard Hot 100 with "The Boy Next Door" -- the flip side, "Kiss My Love Goodbye," found Swann operating firmly in Philly soul territory, its slick, urbane production courtesy of the Young Professionals team of LeBaron Taylor, Phil Hurtt, and Tony Bell. With 1975's "All the Way In or All the Way Out" she again enjoyed minor chart success, but subsequent recording sessions are undocumented, and Swann eventually faded from sight. ~ Jason Ankeny, Rovi

::Bettye Swann: the silent voice of soul that deserves a second listen::

Best,

Ashleuy

Road trip, anyone?

-STAX RECORDS-

The rise and fall of Memphis-based Stax Records remains one of the more compelling sagas in American popular music history. Founded in 1957 as Satellite Records, renamed in 1961 by blending the surnames of brother-sister co-founders Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton, Stax was Motown's funky Deep South counterpart. From its loose atmosphere came giants, including Otis Redding, Rufus Thomas and daughter Carla, Booker T and the MGs, Eddie Floyd, Sam & Dave, Albert King, Isaac Hayes, and the Bar-Kays. Recording in a converted movie theater, the earthy results were often as stunning and transcendent as anything from the equally loose Sun Records across town or Motown itself.

The only soul museum in the world, the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, located at the original site of Stax Records, pays tribute to all of the artists who recorded there with a rare and amazing collection of more than 2,000 interactive exhibits, films, artifacts, items of memorabilia, and galleries designed to keep Stax alive forever.

I believe a summer 2011 road trip is in order.

~Ashley

Featured Artist: Karen Elson

-Karen Elson-

On her debut disc, The Ghost Who Walks, Karen Elson spins intriguingly unsettling tales of lost love, dashed hope, romantic betrayal and various crimes of passion witnessed only by the full moon. In a coolly inviting voice, strumming an acoustic guitar, she summons up a dark yet seductive atmosphere, an after-midnight world that’s irresistibly alluring. The arrangements for her small band – featuring the virtuosic Jackson Smith on guitar, Elson’s Citizens Band co-hort Rachelle Garniez on accordion and vocals, The Dead Weather’s Jack Lawrence on bass, My Morning Jacket’s Carl Broemel on pedal steel and producer Jack White on drums – evoke the lonesome feel of country (“Cruel Summer”), the tormented side of the blues (“The Truth Is In the Dirt”), or the haunted stories of traditional folk balladry (“Stolen Roses”).

The Ghost Who Walks may not be drawn literally from Elson’s life, but it does represent an aspect of her psyche she’s been brave enough to explore: “I’m very much interested in the dark side of things. In my life, truthfully, I’ve had a lot of bizarre and dark experiences that have definitely colored the way I think about a lot of personal things. The music I have always listened to as well has had a sorrowful, mournful, if not murderous, quality to it.” She pauses to laugh. “I’m not saying I would ever want to kill anybody, but sometimes love can drag you to the very depths of yourself and – my God – make you so desperate and forlorn. I really respond to songs that write about that. Hank Williams, for crying out loud, speaking of being forlorn and forsaken -- there’s a song I just heard of his, an early demo, that really resonated with me. Those songs move me in a way that happy go lucky songs don’t.”

These mysterious and beautiful songs, more than any picture, speak volumes.

Hauntingly yours,

Ashley

Featured Artist: Jimmy Reed

-Featured Artist: Jimmy Reed-

There's simply no sound in the blues as easily digestible, accessible, instantly recognizable, and as easy to play and sing as the music of Jimmy Reed. His best-known songs -- "Baby, What You Want Me to Do," "Bright Lights, Big City," "Honest I Do," "You Don't Have to Go," "Going to New York," "Ain't That Lovin' You Baby," and "Big Boss Man" -- have become such an integral part of the standard blues repertoire, it's almost as if they have existed forever. Because his style was simple and easily imitated, his songs were accessible to just about everyone from high-school garage bands having a go at it, to Elvis Presley, Charlie Rich, Lou Rawls, Hank Williams, Jr., and the Rolling Stones, making him -- in the long run -- perhaps the most influential bluesman of all. His bottom-string boogie rhythm guitar patterns (all furnished by boyhood friend and longtime musical partner Eddie Taylor), simple two-string turnarounds, country-ish harmonica solos (all played in a neck-rack attachment hung around his neck), and mush-mouthed vocals were probably the first exposure most white folks had to the blues. And his music -- lazy, loping, and insistent and constantly built and reconstructed single after single on the same sturdy frame -- was a formula that proved to be enormously successful and influential, both with middle-aged blacks and young white audiences for a good dozen years. Jimmy Reed records hit the R&B charts with amazing frequency and crossed over onto the pop charts on many occasions, a rare feat for an unreconstructed bluesman. This is all the more amazing simply because Reed's music was nothing special on the surface; he possessed absolutely no technical expertise on either of his chosen instruments and his vocals certainly lacked the fierce declamatory intensity of a Howlin' Wolf or a Muddy Waters. But it was exactly that lack of in-your-face musical confrontation that made Jimmy Reed a welcome addition to everybody's record collection back in the '50s and '60s. And for those aspiring musicians who wanted to give the blues a try, either vocally or instrumentally (no matter what skin color you were born with), perhaps Billy Vera said it best in his liner notes to a Reed greatest-hits anthology: "Yes, anybody with a range of more than six notes could sing Jimmy's tunes and play them the first day Mom and Dad brought home that first guitar from Sears & Roebuck. I guess Jimmy could be termed the '50s punk bluesman."-Cub Koda

Blues & Booze,

Ashley

Featured Artist: Laura Marling

-Laura Marling-

Laura Marling had just turned 18 when she released her 2008 debut, but it seemed like she'd already lived four or five lifetimes.

By then, she had somehow digested the entire canon of British folk music along with her guitar lessons, in the process becoming world-weary enough to write lines like “The gods that he believes never fail to disappoint me” and “Don’t cry child, you’ve got so much more to live for / Don’t cry child, you’ve got something I would die for.”

And in between touring the globe and being touted as the young queen of a new-folk revival (and shattering the heart of her then-boyfriend/producer, Noah and the Whale’s Charlie Fink, indirectly giving us one of 2009’s best symphonic breakup albums, First Days of Spring), she found it in herself to make yet another gorgeous, melancholy, old-souled record.

Despite its uncanny emotional weight, Alas has its moments of glittering girlishness and sounds at times like it was recorded in an upstairs bedroom at her parents’ house. I Speak Because I Can trades in references to broken dolls for tales of real live babies found in the forest and the yearning for a “Tap at my Window,” for the love of a “Rambling Man.” Fellow new-folk vanguards Mumford & Sons (who released their own excellent album earlier this year) reprise their occasional role as Marling’s backup band, providing urgent, dirty-fingernailed accompaniment—banjos, shuddering organ and occasional brotherly backing vocals—to her lovely, blustery voice and pace-setting guitar (strummed and finger-picked, both with increasing confidence). Marling avoids both precocity and self-seriousness, even when she sings, on the wrenching “Hope in the Air,” “I forgave you your shortcomings and ignored your childish behavior / Laid a kiss on your head and before I left said, ‘Stay away from fleeting failure.’”

Reading-based songstress Laura Marling has been likened to veteran folksters Joni Mitchell and Joan Baez. Despite such hyperbolic accolades, her entry into the crowded world of young female singer-songwriters has been remarkably hushed and wonderfully organic. Having started writing songs at the age of 15, Marling's success has been achieved not by shouting, but by whispering her way through the ranks. Perhaps because of her youth--she turned 18 just before releasing thisAlas, I Cannot Swim--Marling has an understated yet accomplished manner that just doesn't grate like some of her peers. Plus her songs are good--very good. Backed by imaginative arrangements from leftfield acoustic outfit Noah and the Whale, the tracks here are often coyly charming, though far from naïve. Marling digs impressively deep into all kinds of universal topics, from religion and parents to love and romance. Lead single "Ghosts" introduced to many her soft, alluring vocal style, and other songs here share the same sense of intimacy, even if they differ thematically and musically. Things are kept simple throughout (think acoustic strums and a homespun delivery), but there are subtle and beautiful contrasts throughout; the Beirut-esque carnival aura of "Crawled out of the Sea" and the brooding "Night Terror", for example, which provide darker counterpoints to airier fare like the folksy title track and the compelling "My Manic & I". Disarming yet deep, provocative yet peaceful, Alas places Marling head and shoulders above the bawlers and wailers. --Paul Sullivan

Easy, breezy,

Ashley

Featured Artist: Billy Bragg & Wilco (f/Natalie Merchant)

-Billy Bragg & Wilco-

A ghost, a band, a troubadour. Easily the strangest co-op project ever, and easily one of the finest and most evocative albums of the year. British socialist and folkie Billy Bragg was given unprecedented access to Woody Guthrie's unrecorded lyrics. Teaming up with alt-country band Wilco and quoting from more than 50 years of country, folk, and rock music, Billy and company bring Guthrie's politics, poetry, and morality to the end of the century and prove he's as necessary now as ever. --Tod Nelson

Named for a Coney Island street where Woody Guthrie lived in the late Forties and early Fifties, Mermaid Avenue is a collection of recently discovered Guthrie lyrics now set to music for the first time. It's also nothing that the previous work of those involved could have led anyone to expect.

Born in 1912, shaped by the 1930s, recording mostly in the 1940s, the shadow self of a young Bob Dylan in the early 1960s and dead in 1967, Woody Guthrie made his mark as a left-wing version of the professional American. If you listen to him now — homing in on such all-American folk passwords as "Stackolee" and "When That Great Ship Went Down" or on Guthrie's own compositions, from "This Land Is Your Land" to "Farmer-Labor Train" — he can sound very far away. His singing ranges from witty to ghostly to (too often) dull. Flights of craft and inspiration in his words and melodies can be dragged down to earth by the freight they carry: the perfectly weighed and measured details of saying the politically proper thing in the politically proper way.

You can hear a similar imprisonment in the careers of Billy Bragg and Wilco. Since 1983, Bragg has combined a heavy East End London accent, often the naked sound of his own electric guitar, and a political sensibility that owes more to the 1930s than to any time since. He has left behind "Levi Stubbs' Tears," which still feels like an open wound, and a slew of pieces testifying mostly to the fact that his heart is in the right place, even if he wears it on his sleeve. Singer Jeff Tweedy stepped out with Uncle Tupelo in 1990; there or in Wilco, with guitarist and keyboard player Jay Bennett, drummer Ken Coomer and bassist John Stirratt, he has sung more at his red-dirt revisions of the oldest folk and country airs than from inside them. He has seemed far more sure of himself singing other people's songs, even such seemingly uncoverable eruptions of the American Gothic as Richard "Rabbit" Brown's "James Alley Blues" or Dock Boggs' "Sugar Baby," both of which were originally recorded around seventy years ago. It's as if Tweedy loves the old American music too much to trust his own.

Thus it's the best shock of the year to find Mermaid Avenue opening with a couple of sailors tripping over each other in search of booze and pussy — there being no more proper way to put it. "Walked up to a big old building/I won't say which building," Bragg says happily. "Walked up the stairs/Not to say which stairs" — and just like that, with a crowd of smelly drunks shouting Bragg through the choruses, Guthrle's lyric sheet for "Walt Whitman's Niece" turns into some seemingly fated tangle of "Gloria," Last Exit to Brooklyn and Beach Boys' Party! as performed by the Three Stooges. For the rest of the disc, making a better world is inseparable from making a better night, and the historical treasure of Guthrie's found lyrics yields to the melodies and arrangements that Bragg and Wilco use to bring them to life.

Hard or even impossible to place, those melodies, from just below the surface of the American pop tradition or from the true depths of the British folk tradition, float Guthrie's screeds, stories and musings off into a realm where he is freed from his legend — into a realm where the people now singing his songs are freed from respect for it. The songs seemingly move of their own accord, and the record becomes unstable. The number that you know is the best piece here isn't the one with the tune you can't get out of your head — and which one that might be changes every other day. From Tweedy's dry-as-dust vocal on "Hesitating Beauty" — a seduction song named for Guthrie's daughter — to the rousing sing-along Bragg makes of "I Guess I Planted," Guthrie's summation of his life's work, the forgotten or untold stories in the songs become a new story, and it all comes to verge with "Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key."

A young man gets a young woman to crawl into a hollow tree with him; promising that "there ain't nobody that can sing like me," he gets her to take off her shirt; years and years later, he looks back and smiles. The melody that guides this slowly told, perfectly written tale convinces you that even if the man grew up to rob widows and orphans, he has lived a blessed life. Natalie Merchant, coming in behind Bragg's lead, opens up the song, making it the woman's as much as the man's; Eliza Carthy's fiddle, seemingly waiting in the melody long before it chooses to take up Guthrie's words, makes the story being told feel as old as the stories told in the oldest folk songs, in "The Coo Coo" or "The House Carpenter." As Bragg and Wilco perform it, the number is also no more than what it is: an old man's grin.-Greil Marcus

Cordially,

Ashley

Featured Artist: The Dutchess & The Duke

-The Dutchess & The Duke-

"By taking tonal cues from darker, acid-tinged '60s pop and sweetening it with just the right amount of meticulously constructed harmonies, they are managing to pull off one of the trickier combinations in songwriting--sounding timeless and utterly modern at the same time."-Seattle Weekly

Moeller's review: (it's too poetic not to post)

She's still the Dutchess and he's still the Duke on the Pacific Northwest band's sophomore album, "Sunrise/Sunset," but Kimberly Morrison and Jesse Lortz have put together an enhanced vision of who they were on their debut album. The Dutchess & The Duke is certainly one of the finest folk bands working today, writing songs that should have existed decades ago, when there were no such things as digital recordings or MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3s, when everything one heard was bejazzled with the blissful hiss and hum of analog tape. It was as much of what we heard and as soothing of a sound as the box fan turned on in the bedroom at night, for some, when cooling the air isn't the reason for doing it. It was, most likely, one of Lortz's first loves. Instead of taping or push-pinning magazine cut-outs of Pete Townsend or Neil Young on his walls in junior high and high school, he would have - if he could have - taped a photographic representation of analog tape hiss to the wall. He may have even - at night - wished upon that torn out piece of paper hanging on that broad side of painted dry wall, believing that doing so would some day let him fall or work into a world that would never be missing that same hum and hiss. Lortz would have been much more at home then. And by "then," we mean another time when recording procedures were so much simpler and so much more complex, needing a near perfect performance from everyone in the group to be a take worth keeping, when the room was an auxiliary player and there were fewer ways to be anything other than what you actually were as a singer, a musician and a presence. The music and the songs on "Sunrise/Sunset" rely on this authenticity and even more so on this ability to suggest different things at once.

For the most part, Lortz and Morrison make their music feel as sun-kissed as it could possibly get, skirting any kind of reddening of the skin, avoiding damage, just giving smooches, just letting you feel as if the outside temperatures were no different than inside temperatures, as if you were walking through a continued climate - only, there's the sun meeting you halfway. It's this randomly measured way of feeling completely eased into a spot, the same way you get when you plop down on your couch, in the same spot as always, recognizing that you're the one carving the cushioning into your specifically molded ass shape. You can't fight it and you can't help but feel that your couch is better off with you having been there many times previously. That's the music, but the lyrical writing done by the pair is splendid in its seeming contrast, begging for answers to some of the more dizzying questions that tend to occupy heavy hearts, not those that occupy those kissed upon hearts at leisure, when a day's asking for nothing other than carefree floating time. You have lovers continually asking if they're missing something, if they're just forgetting or refusing to see something so obvious. It could just be that lessons have been learned the hard way over the years, but there's a healthy dose of skepticism that these emotions are all built upon the sand and there's no sense in getting too partial to any of them, or the people who are offering them. There are frequent mentions of hands, and an emphasis on the indisputable fact that most everyone has two of them and they each can be doing opposite things at the same time - with enough coordination and skill. Lortz sings on the album's lead-off track "Hands," "One hand gone and the other trying to hold on," and later on the record about a woman holding him, but there exists an ominous tone, "In your heart, there's another man and I just think that's wrong." There's a duplicity to these sugars and to these bitter strains of cruel medicine that ultimately still equate to a delicious sweetness.-Sean Moeller

Sweetly,

Ashley