Billy Bragg: Tooth and Nail

Billy Bragg

Tooth and Nail
(Cooking Vinyl)
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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On his first album in five years, Billy Bragg gets back to basics on Tooth and Nail, an album that’s musically stripped to the bare minimum: recorded live, without the “benefit” of overdubs, in less than a week. Real music by real people, in other words.

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Madeleine Peyroux: The Blue Room

Madeleine Peyroux

The Blue Room
(Decca/Emarcy)
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Dim the lights, open that bottle of wine you saved for a special evening and when the moment is ripe, push play on The Blue Room to ramp up the romantic flames. Velvet voiced jazz chanteuse Madeleine Peyroux and producer Larry Klein started a reimagining of Ray Charles’ 1962 classic Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, then added some slightly newer material from Randy Newman, Warren Zevon and John Hartford to refine the concept with a more personal twist. But where Charles threw back whisky shots of C&W with his uniquely soul/gospel phrasing, Peyroux’s more refined and sedate jazz/blues interpretations politely sips aged brandy

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Buddy Miller & Jim Lauderdale: Buddy & Jim

Buddy Miller & Jim Lauderdale
Buddy & Jim
(New West)
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Are there two more omnipresent Americana ambassadors than Buddy Miller and Jim Lauderdale? Their credits range from Robert Plant to Elvis Costello; Ralph Stanley to Solomon Burke – a list long enough to fill the Nashville phonebook. While they have worked together before (including many Americana Music Award shows), this is the first time that these two old pals have done an album together. Considering their long history, it’s not surprising that this collaboration has a natural, easy charm to it.

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Daniel Romano: Come Cry With Me

Daniel Romano
Come Cry With Me
(Normltown)
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Country music is a genre, of course, but it’s also a geographical location: we expect at least some degree of physical southern roots or innate twang birthright from its ardent preachers, particularly those brave enough to wear a Nudie-inspired suit on stage and sing downright traditional songs in the vein of 40’s Nashville or 50’s Bakersfield: tales of women come and gone – mostly gone, actually – told with a wistful eye through a mouth that’s maybe kissed more bottles of whiskey than babies.

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Gibson J-200 Standard Acoustic-Electric Guitar

MSRP: $4,925

Now entering its 76th year, the Gibson J-200 – the “King of the Flat-tops” – is as much of a legend as ever. The current crop of J-200s, made in Gibson’s Bozeman, Montana shop, is helping the company keep pace with a lot of stiff competition in the guitar industry these days.

The J-200 has long been a favorite of professionals, used by early guitar stars like Gene Autry and Roy Rogers, as well as more modern legends like Jimmy Page and The Edge. The guitar doesn’t sound like a Martin or a Taylor, but then, they don’t sound like this Gibson. The new J-200 we played presented excellent craftsmanship, the result of Gibson’s strict inspection regimen. With superbly even balance and tone, the guitar fretted like a dream all the way up the neck, and unplugged barre chords sustained forever, almost as long as open ones.

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Review: Bose L1 Model 1S with B2 Sub

Performing your original material is often so much about getting your sound right. Since 2003, Bose Corporation has offered the L1 system, a great portable PA package that’s ideal for the singer-songwriter. What’s so great? In addition to their portability and outstanding sound quality, the L1 systems essentially eliminate the need for monitors in most venues. How they do it is a bit of audio engineering science, but the effect of having an array of small speakers arranged to deliver wide dispersion is that the room coverage is very even—up close, far off, even to the sides you get the same full-range sound.

The latest addition to Bose’s L1 line is the Model 1S with accompanying subwoofer (B1 or B2 model). Our test unit featured the B2, a ‘big brother’ model targeted at the performer who needs a bigger sound and more bottom end.  If your songs need to shake the room, this is the sub for you. I’ll discuss more about that in a minute.  First, let’s talk about the system’s overall size. Bose likes to describe the size of their L1 models by how many people you might have in the audience (100, 300 or 500), which gives you a feel for what venues the system might be best for covering. You’ll also want to consider what kind of original music you are performing—acoustic solo, singer with tracks, full band, heavy synth sounds, etc. – to pick the right L1 system for your music.

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Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit: Live from Alabama

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit
Live from Alabama
(Lightening Rod/Thirty Tigers)
Rating: 4 1/2 out of 5 stars

The timing of ex-Drive-By Trucker Isbell’s first full concert album — there was a previous live EP — couldn’t have been better. He just won the Americana Music Awards and Honors song of the year for “Alabama Pines,” and his 400 Unit backing trio — here augmented by a three piece horn section for a few tunes — is in fighting form.

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Coldplay: Live 2012

Coldplay
Live 2012 
(Capitol)
Rating: 3.5 stars

“It’s exciting when you’re 15 and you throw a party and people come,” Chris Martin says during Live 2012, “so imagine what it’s like, on a daily basis, to have 20,000 people coming.” Equal parts concert film and tour documentary, Live 2012 shows you exactly what that’s like. Directed by Paul Dugdale, it captures Coldplay’s sold-out Mylo Xyloto tour with stunning shots, from black-and-white candids of the guys backstage to vibrant footage of their paint-splattered, confetti-covered stage show. There’s one scene where the boys finish their encore, leave the venue before the applause dies out, and check into a hotel twenty minutes later. Each bandmate gets his own room, and it looks uncomfortably different — small, solitary, sanitary — from the messy stage they occupied just a half hour before. Minutes later, the camera switches back to a slow-motion clip of Martin leaping across a stadium’s stage, his hands outstretched, while canons shoot streams of colored paper into the air. Those are the two extremes of Coldplay’s life on the road, and Dugdale pays attention to both, balancing anthemic performances of “Clocks,” “Hurts Like Heaven,” and “Charlie Brown” with offstage interviews and voiceovers. The highlight: a gorgeous, imperfect performance of “Up In Flames,” shot in stark B&W and gradually illuminated by full-color footage.

The Civil Wars: Unplugged

The Civil Wars
Unplugged
(Sensibility Music)
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

For a band that only has one full album to their credit, Unplugged, released exclusively through iTunes, marks the The Civil Wars fourth official live release. What fans of the group can be most excited about is that it’s the best sounding of the bunch to date. The previous two live EPs included a SXSW set (also an iTunes exclusive) from March 2011 that sounded like it was recorded from a cell phone and this past April’s Record Store Day release that featured a live performance from Amoeba Records in Hollywood from June 2011 whose sound was better but still rather muffled. Stunningly, their first live release, Live At Eddie’s Attic was the best of the bunch showcasing not only their songwriting prowess but their adoring chemistry. However, Unplugged, which aired on VH1 back in May, is the best document yet to be released of the duo under the spotlights.
> Included are four songs from the award-winning and critically-praised Barton Hollow as well as one of their entries to the Hunger Games soundtrack (“Kingdom Come”) and two cover songs. The group is well-known for their adventurous takes on covers. There’s a version of Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean,” almost unrecognizable at the start as John Paul White strums chords on his acoustic guitar, and a cover of Portishead’s “Sour Times,” a favorite band of both Joy and John Paul. It marks the first stateside release of the song by The Civil Wars, although it did appear on a 45 in the UK for a Record Store Day release in April 2012. The group’s harmonies are beautiful, giving light to a song that lingered in the shadows in its original version.

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Book Review: Willie Nelson, Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die: Musings From the Road

Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die: Musings From the Road
Willie Nelson
(Morrow)
Rating: 3.5 stars

With a twinkle in his eyes, a laugh in his belly, a sagacious nod, and a deep love for life, Nelson takes us for a rollicking ride along the highways and byways of his long life and career in this rambunctious, hilarious, reflective, and loving memoir. With his rapscallion smile, Nelson regales us with tales of life on the road, his life in Maui, his early years in Texas—he was smoking and drinking by the time he was six—his love of dominoes—he plays with Woody Harrelson and Owen Wilson in Maui—and golf, his deep and abiding love for his family, and his deep respect and enduring admiration for the songwriters and musicians with whom he has performed and who have influenced him, from Ray Price and Leon Russell to Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings.