Otis Redding - Live On The Sunset Strip

OTIS REDDING’S 2-CD LIVE ON THE SUNSET STRIP DOCUMENTS HISTORIC 1966 CLUB DATE AT THE ARTIST’S PEAK OF POWER

Three full sets available in their entirety for the first time,
with digital remastering and extensive liner notes

LOS ANGELES, Calif. - In 1966, Otis Redding had emerged not only as the star of Stax Records but as one of nation's most influential soul singers. With his version of "Satisfaction" climbing the charts in April 1966, Redding arrived in Los Angeles to play both the Hollywood Bowl (as part of a KHJ-AM listener appreciation concert that also featured Donovan, Sonny & Cher and the Mamas & the Papas) and a four-nighter at the legendary Whisky A Go Go on the Sunset Strip. According to Taj Mahal, whose '60s band the Rising Sons opened the Whisky shows, "At that time, Otis was it."

Live on the Sunset Strip, slated for May 18, 2010 release on Stax Records through Concord Music Group, captures Redding in the white heat of transition, when his star power was undeniable and it was still possible to catch him backed by his own road band in the tight quarters of a smoky nightclub. The 2-CD set features three full live sets that have never been previously available in their entirety. A definitive live statement from Redding, the songs are sequenced exactly as they went down, complete with an emcee and spoken introductions by Redding. The booklet features rare photographs as well as extensive liner notes by Ashley Kahn, author of music biographies and a contributor to NPR's Morning Edition.

Live on the Sunset Strip highlights versions of Redding's best-known songs: "I've Been Loving You Too Long," "Security," "I Can't Turn You Loose," "Satisfaction," "Respect," "These Arms of Mine" and "Just One More Day," to name a few.

As Kahn points out in his notes, "In 1966, Redding was 24 and defined not only the sound but the style and look of a true soul man. Tall and lanky, he was ready to drop to his knees and tear off the thin-lapelled jacket of his sharply pressed suit when it was time to deliver the goods. His ten-piece band was his personal, traveling amen-corner, urging him to testify night after night . . . His out-of-breath stage patter was warm and downhome. ‘Ladies and gentlemens,' he addressed his fans, ‘holler as loud as you wanna - you ain't home!'"

The Whisky A Go Go was known for its integrated booking policy and for helping bring awareness of R&B and blues to rock audiences, who attended shows by the Doors, Love, and the Standells at the venue. On April 7-10, the club booked the Otis Redding Revue for the Easter weekend that followed the Hollywood Bowl appearance. Redding's entourage included an emcee and a full 10-piece band (led by saxophonist Bob Holloway) along with three up-and-coming singers performing one tune apiece before the headliner hit the stage. Engineer Wally Heider, the West Coast's leading recorder of live performances, was hired to tape the three nights.

The shows did not go unnoticed by the Los Angeles Times, which noted: "Drawn by his growing popularity, a fervid audience shoe-horned into the club . . . Redding was assured of an In Group [sic] following Thursday night when from among his spectators emerged Bob Dylan, trailed by an entourage of camp followers." (Legend holds that Dylan offered him "Just Like a Woman" as a possible cover that night, though Redding thought the song was a little wordy.)

Redding achieved even greater heights in the months after the Whisky performances, chalking up two new hits ("Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa [Sad Song]" and "Try a Little Tenderness"). He played San Francisco's Fillmore Auditorium, took part in the Stax/Volt Revue through Europe in March '67 and stole the show at the historic Monterey International Pop Festival in June of that year. The ultimate tragedy happened on December 10, 1967, when, as eloquently stated by Kahn, "his death in an airplane crash . . . dramatically froze his star forever in its perfect, meteoric apogee."

In 1968, Stax posthumously issued the LP In Person at the Whisky A Go Go, with liner notes by Los Angeles Times critic Pete Johnson, who'd also reviewed the live show. In 1993, the CD Good to Me: Recorded Live at the Whisky, Vol. 2 expanded on a largely forgotten 1982 LP, Recorded Live. While those releases juggled selections from different shows, Live on the Sunset Strip stands out as a historically true document, offering the last three consecutive sets capturing Redding and his band in top form.

"I'm still real clear about those shows," recalls Taj Mahal, whose Rising Sons opened them. "It was raw and unscripted. It was just the joy of music, you know. The joy of rhythm, the joy of energy. . ."

New Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings album on the way

Exciting news for fans of soul, funk and R&B - according to Daptone records, the follow up to Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings smash hit 2007 album '100 Days, 100 Nights' is right around the corner.

'I Learned The Hard Way' is slated for an April 6th release date, but you can check out the title track right now by clicking this link. Sign up for the Daptone mailing list (or type in your existing address if you're already a member) and you'll receive an mp3 of the new track, free of charge.

According to the mail-out, the album '...produced by Bosco Mann and recorded on an Ampex eight-track tape machine by Gabriel Roth in Daptone Records’ House of Soul studios, this record drips with a warmth and spontaneity rarely found since the golden days of Muscle Shoals and Stax.'

As podcast listeners will know, Daptone has a strong history of stellar releases, and we're expecting this one to be no exception.

www.daptonerecords.com

OUT THIS WEEK: Miles Davis, Iggy Pop

Two recommended releases for you this week, beginning with Legacy's reissue of 'Sketches Of Spain' - the 1959 Miles Davis/Gil Evans classic, with bonus tracks:

Legacy continues its Miles campaign with Sketches of Spain (Legacy Edition) celebrating the 50th anniversary of the trumpeter’s extraordinary collaboration with Gil Evans. When it was released in 1960, it was so different that many critics simply didn’t know what to make of it. When confronted with the question is it jazz? Miles answered, “It’s music, and I like it.” The finished results were ultimately hailed as a masterpiece, creating a hypnotic ‘possessed’ effect, and brought to a fitting climax the period of intense creativity that had begun in 1954.

Each of the four orchestral album collaborations with self-taught arranger-composer Gil Evans – Miles Ahead (1957), Porgy And Bess (1958), Sketches of Spain (1959), and Quiet Nights (1962) – is a masterwork in its own right. Sketches was Miles’s first post-Kind Of Blue project, and retains that LP’s modal feel on the 16-minute version of Rodrigo’s “Concierto de Aranjuez,’ the inspiration for Davis and Evans. Miles Davis – the great improvising soloist. Gil Evans – the great orchestrator. Sketches was the album with which Davis closed the old decade and opened up the new one.

Sketches of Spain (Legacy Edition) includes on 2 CDs what is unanimously regarded as powerful and lasting music, music that represents a compelling blend of the “deep song” of flamenco and the cry of the blues.

This set includes:

* Over two hours of music. The original album along with rehearsal and alternate takes previously heard only on the 1996 set Miles Davis & Gil Evans: The Complete Columbia Studio Recordings, plus the only piece ever performed live by Miles with Gil – “Concierto de Aranjuez” performed at Carnegie Hall on May 19, 1961.

* Bonus digital booklet with Rare photos, session records with Teo Macero’s producer notes and clippings including the 1960 Hi Fi/Stereo Review article by Nat Hentoff describing the Nov. 15, 1959 recording session.

* New liner notes for this 2009 edition are written by composer/academician Gunther Schuller, whose hundreds of accomplishments in jazz include playing french horn for Miles on the 1949-50 Birth Of The Cool sessions, and recording with Miles and Gil on the 1958 masterpiece, Porgy and Bess.

DISC 1
CONCIERTO DE ARANJUEZ (ADAGIO) 16:20
WILL O’ THE WISP 3:48
THE PAN PIPER 3:55
SAETA 4:59
SOLEA (12:17)
SONG OF OUR COUNTRY (3:20)

DISC 2
1 MAIDS OF CADIZ (3:47)
2 CONCIERTO DE ARANJUEZ (ADAGIO)
[REHEARSAL TAKE, INCOMPLETE, W/O MILES DAVIS] (7:23)
3 CONCIERTO DE ARANJUEZ (ADAGIO)
[ALTERNATE TAKE, PART ONE] (12:06)
4 CONCIERTO DE ARANJUEZ (ADAGIO)
[ALTERNATE TAKE, PART TWO] (3:34)
5 CONCIERTO DE ARANJUEZ (ADAGIO)
[ALTERNATE ENDING] (1:04)
6 THE PAN PIPER [TAKE 1] (3:12)
7 SONG OF OUR COUNTRY [TAKE 9, W/O INTRO] (3:00)
8 SONG OF OUR COUNTRY
[TAKE 14, SLOWER TEMPO, W/O INTRO] (3:11)
9 SAETA [FULL VERSION OF MASTER] (6:03)
10 CONCIERTO DE ARANJUEZ (ADAGIO) [LIVE] (17:07)
11 TEO (9:34)

Also this week, the Ig-uana returns with something more than a little different:





Preliminaires is out this week (UK/Europe) and next Tuesday (US).

Nanci Griffith readies first album of new material since 2005

Nanci Griffith’s classic sound – folk/country melodies built around stories that aren’t afraid to tackle big subjects all delivered with the artist’s signature vocal style – returns in full bloom on THE LOVING KIND, her new album scheduled for release on June 9th from Rounder Records. Featuring thirteen new songs, THE LOVING KIND is Nanci’s most politically outspoken release in years, and underscores her stature as one of the music world’s most esteemed singer-songwriters.
The release of THE LOVING KIND will be accompanied by a U.S. tour.

With a recording and touring history that stretches back more than two decades, Griffith has established, what Madison Avenue would call, a “brand.” But her signature music is much more about art than commerce, which is why her fan base has remained incredibly loyal - fans include contemporaries such as Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, and Emmylou Harris, all of whom have either recorded her songs or insisted she record theirs.

With her last CD (the critically-acclaimed Ruby’s Torch), a torch song tribute, THE LOVING KIND is her first studio album of original and contemporary cover material since 2005’s Hearts In Mind. The title track, emblematic of the album’s story songs, refers to Loving v. Virginia, the 1967 landmark civil rights case that once and for all ended the ban on interracial marriages in the U.S. Richard and Mildred Loving were a married white man and black woman who were forced to leave their native state of Virginia under threat of arrest because of the state’s Jim Crow law prohibiting marriages between different races.

“I read Mildred Loving’s obituary in The New York Times last year and it just floored me,” recalls Griffith. Tragically, Richard died in a tragic car accident just months after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the couple’s favor. “She never remarried and in her last interview, just before she passed away, she expressed hope that their case would eventually be the open door to the legalization of same sex marriage.”

Another track on the album, “Not Innocent Enough,” is also built around a political and legal controversy, namely the celebrated death row case of Philip Workman, who was convicted in 1981 of killing a Memphis police officer. Despite new evidence that proved his innocence, which he always maintained through his five scheduled execution dates, Workman was put to death by the State of Tennessee on May 9, 2007. Fellow singer-songwriter John Prine joins Griffith on this track, backed by a chorus that also includes tunesmiths Elizabeth Cook and Todd Snider.

“I started writing this song long before Philip was executed, but just couldn’t finish it until that final injustice took place,” says Griffith.

On a more personal note, “Up Against The Rain,” co-written with her longtime collaborator Charley Stefl, is Griffith’s tribute to her mentor, country-folk singer and poet Townes Van Zandt. But on a broader level, the song “could be for anyone’s hero and with me, I also lost my dear, beautiful stepfather just before Christmas of last year, and we recorded the song the day I retuned from his funeral in Austin. So, it’s very close to my heart.”

THE LOVING KIND was produced by Pat McInerney and Thomm Jutz and features McInerney on drums and percussion, Jutz on guitar, Matt McKenzie on bass, Barry Walsh on keyboards, Shad Cobb on fiddle and Fats Kaplin on pedal steel guitar, mandolin and fiddle. A complete track listing for THE LOVING KIND is as follows:

1 The Loving Kind
2 Money Changes Everything
3 One Of These Days
4 Up Against The Rain
5 Cotton
6 Not Innocent Enough
7 Across America
8 Party Girl
9 Sing
10 Things I Don’t Need
11 Still Life
12 Tequila After Midnight
13 Pour Me A Drink

RECOMMENDED ALBUM: Jolie Holland - The Living & The Dead

Originally posted on the old site, October 2008.



Jolie Holland - The Living And The Dead

(ANTI)

In Stores Now.

The Living & the Dead is a work between worlds, of moving on and finding something new, of missed chances, and promises on distant horizons. From the past (the haunting simplicity of "Love Henry,"which Bob Dylan tells us pre-dates the Bible) to the future (the stunning emotional complexity of her song,"The Future"), the Texas-bred singer-songwriter navigates a new rock approach that is built upon the folk, blues and jazz spectors that populated her three acclaimed previous albums.

Holland composed these songs in her old home town of San Francisco, as well as on the road across North America and Europe. A few were born during a writing retreat in New Zealand. Arising out of her life stories, and from the rich estuaries of the mysterious tales of other adventurers, her songs are grounded by true experience.

The Living and the Dead is an exhilarating ride with a higher voltage than the previous albums, music that had already left fans and critics at a loss to describe her singular vision as performer and writer. Holland worked with co-producer Shahzad Ismaily (Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, Two Foot Yard, Marc Ribot's Ceramic Dog) in sessions both in Brooklyn, New York and Portland, Oregon. With contributions from guitar maestros Marc Ribot (who played with Tom Waits and Elvis Costello) and M. Ward (who also produced one song and helped shape the sound of others) and drummer Rachel Blumberg (M. Ward, Bright Eyes, the Decemberists), Holland has created an album that serves as a career statement. Holland's voice is the same beautiful instrument, which has never before sounded so confident, relaxed or emotive.

With 2003's Catalpa (essentially home-made demos released due to popular interest and then nominated for the prestigious Short List Music Prize by Tom Waits), 2004's Escondida and 2006's Springtime Can Kill You (which Rolling Stone said "feels better than a good cry"), she evolved a sound that existed in its own time, as if it could have been recorded anywhere between God knows when and yesterday. The Living & the Dead shares that same quality, but its timelessness is rooted in the present. Take Holland's description of the song “Your Big Hands”:

"It's just terribly naïve—it’s the kind of song Daniel Johnston made me feel brave enough to write," she says. "It starts out with these beautiful dirty guitar chords from M Ward, almost like a Rolling Stones song...the overall feel of this song owes a debt to Waits' version of rock ala 'Downtown Train'...then, in the middle of the song, all that has disappeared...you feel as though you're wandering around in the woods--there are owls and shooting stars…but then the song burns out with a mess of distorted guitars.”

In many ways, this album is a chronicle of her own journey. The driven "Corrido Por Buddy" (about a friend who sunk so far into addiction that Holland didn't recognize him on the street) is both character study and self-examination/recrimination – a sense magnified for the singer by not just one, but two instances of eerily identical poltergeist phenomena in the studios while the band was recording "...Buddy." The phenomena were witnessed by three band members, and occurred both in Portland and New York, during the song's production.

"The Future" is a presentation of beautiful poetry which arose out of personal misery – "When I wrote that I was really kind of crying and holding on to the piano—it’s about the hell of breaking up and moving out at the same time.”

"Palmyra" is a prayer for the broken-hearted and traumatized, both individuals and communities. The first half paints a picture a love-lorn traveler pulling herself back together after a disastrous affair. The second half is lovingly and respectfully dedicated to the hard-pressed people of New Orleans' Ninth Ward, hallowed estuary of some of the finest music the world has ever witnessed.

Upon hearing the completed album, Holland says, "I hear a lot of interesting connections between the songs that I didn't premeditate. 'Sweet Loving Man,' (a very modern love song, based on South Louisiana dance music) is sitting right next to 'Love Henry' (which is ancient as hell.) The first song is about a lover who sets out to attempt a life free from heart-break, by any means necessary. And the second is a twisted tale of a scheming rich woman who kills her lover in a fit of jealousy. It's like putting two opposite colors next to each other on a painting.”

The perceived space between ancient and modern seems to fade away. If something speaks to you and is meaningful, dates can become irrelevant. In that way, Holland's work has always been characterized as timeless. This album lives and breathes through memories of the past via reflection and resurrection, and grows into the present tense. The Living and the Dead reflects those timeless elements that make Holland's songwriting so powerful. It's multi-faceted, emotionally rich, and a continuation of one songwriter's existence within her own worlds and outside others. Enjoy Yourself.