Mike Love has announced details of a new solo album, Unleash The Love.
The double features 13 new songs and 14 re-recordings of Beach Boys classics. It is released on November 17 through BMG.
“I’ve been working on these new songs on and off for many years now and I’m excited to share them with fans,” says Mike Love. “As a writer, I kept gravitating to this idea of love, in all forms. Romantic love, unrequited love, lasting love, spiritual love, love for the planet, and what the absence of love can do to us as a people. This album is my way of communicating what the world needs now is love sweet love. And the hope is if we all can unleash whatever love inside of us, we can collectively make this world better.”
The tracklisting is:
Mike Love Originals Side A All the Love in Paris featuring Dave Koz on Saxophone Getcha Back featuring John Stamos on Drums Daybreak Over the Ocean
I Don’t Wanna Know
Too Cruel
Crescent Moon
Side B Cool Head, Warm Heart
Pisces Brothers
Unleash The Love
Ram Raj
10,000 Years Ago featuring John Stamos on Drums Only One Earth
Make Love Not War
Mike Love/Beach Boys Re-Records Side A California Girls
Do It Again featuring Mark McGrath and John Stamos Help Me Rhonda
I Get Around
Warmth of the Sun featuring Ambha Love Brian’s Back
Side B Kiss Me Baby
Darlin’ featuring AJR Wild Honey featuring John Cowsill Wouldn’t It Be Nice
Good Vibrations
Fun Fun Fun
Last night [October 4], Bruce Springsteen opened the first preview of his Broadway show in New York with a dedication to Tom Petty.
According to the New York Daily News, the two-hour show started with Springsteen standing on stage dressed all in black, dedicating the show to the late musician, sending his thoughts and prayers to Petty’s family and his bandmates, the Heartbreakers.
The 18-week run of Bruce Springsteen shows is taking place at NYC’s Walter Kerr Theatre, and Springsteen has promised that it will be a “personal” and “intimate” affair. Images from the preview show indicate a sparse set made up of a black grand piano and a few acoustic guitars. He was joined by E Street Band member and his wife Patti Scialfa for “Tougher Than the Rest” and “Brilliant Disguise”.
Springsteen On Broadway officially opens next week on October 12.
See the full setlist below:
Growin’ Up
My Hometown
My Father’s House
The Wish
Thunder Road
The Promised Land
Born In The U.S.A.
Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out
Tougher Than the Rest (with Patti Scialfa)
Brilliant Disguise (with Patti Scialfa)
The Ghost Of Tom Joad
Long Walk Home
Dancing In The Dark
Land Of Hope And Dreams
Born To Run
Around the time of the 2009 release of The Clientele’s Bonfires On The Heath, Alasdair MacLean described the imminent cessation of his band’s activities as more like a chapter’s close than a final page. Either way, it was quite an achievement for the story to last so long given The Clientele’s happenstance existence. After evolving in fits and starts in London through the ’90s, the band only solidified into an ongoing concern when Merge released the early-works collection Suburban Light in 2000, thereby minting an American following that became surprisingly passionate for an act brandishing such thoroughly British reference points as the poetry of Ralph Hodgson. The influence of Surrealist art and literature provided a more continental air to the four exquisitely wrought studio albums that ensued, though MacLean maintained his favourite bands all hailed from LA, like Love and The Byrds.
By the end of the decade, MacLean was asking himself if The Clientele had anything left to say. As he said at the time, “You constantly have to rethink what you’re doing and wonder whether it’s courageous again.” After 2010 mini-album Minotaur, The Clientele did indeed close up shop, though even this hiatus didn’t much feel like one. It was more of a half-life, punctuated with the occasional gig, a generous campaign of reissues and the pair of lovely albums MacLean made with Pipas singer Lupe Núñez-Fernández, the duo recording and touring as Amor De Dias when not busy raising a family.
So perhaps it’s not surprising to have The Clientele back with its first collection of new music in seven years. What is startling is the abundance of new ideas and feeling of renewed vitality on Music For The Age Of Miracles, qualities that make the songs as compelling as any the band have recorded.
This process of rejuvenation began when MacLean had a chance encounter with Anthony Harmer, a friend and musician he hadn’t seen since the mid-’90s. In the years between their meetings, Harmer had mastered the santoor, a hammered dulcimer long favoured by Iranian and Indian classical musicians. Its bright, chiming sound became a key element in the music that emerged from their collaborations. These became fully fledged Clientele songs after MacLean brought bassist James Hornsey and drummer and pianist Mark Keen back into the fold.
At times, the santoor emphasises aspects that have long been part of The Clientele’s palette, the band’s sound having always nodded toward ’60s baroque-influenced pop without being unduly slavish about it. As before, there are echoes of The Hollies and The Zombies in songs like “The Neighbour”, the album’s beatific, harmony-laden opener. With its combination of the santoor’s harpsichord-like brightness and the opening phrase of “Ballerina, breathe”, “Everything You See Tonight Is Different From Itself” evokes The Left Banke’s “Pretty Ballerina”, an orch-pop touchstone if there ever was one.
But that’s certainly not the only colour here, nor the only texture. Instead, the songs on …Miracles can seem like so much Swiss clockwork, full of cycles within cycles and interconnected parts moving in tandem. Nowhere is that clearer than on “Falling Asleep”, which shifts from moments of squelchy radio noise, to sequences more evocative of the santoor’s Eastern roots, to sections of extraordinary intricacy and delicacy thanks to Harmer’s strings and brass arrangements. Here and elsewhere, MacLean’s warm, whispery vocals serve as the fixed point around which everything else revolves. Though The Clientele frontman has long expressed his love of Boards Of Canada, this is the closest his band has been to crafting a companion to The Campfire Headphase. There are further echoes of the Warp duo’s dense psych-folk masterpiece in the fine instrumental interludes by Keen, and other unexpected moments that recall the pastoral electronica of BOC peers Ultramarine.
The richness of the musical settings do not detract from MacLean’s skills as a lyricist. His songs make their own constant and subtle shifts from the prosaic – like the sounds of ordinary household commotion in “Falling Asleep”, the “thud of feet and muffled shutting doors” – to more cryptic mentions of “the year that the monster will come” in the haunting “Lunar Days”. Though always wary of nostalgia, he repeatedly returns to descriptions of moments that get swallowed up by memories too vivid to be pleasant. The most unnerving example arrives in “The Museum Of Fog”, a spoken-word piece in which the narrator visits a pub of his youth only to be overpowered by ghosts of his past and more sinister forces. Any band that has persisted as long as The Clientele may be similarly haunted by ghosts of younger selves. But reunions of much-cherished acts rarely yield new music that stakes such a strong claim to the present, a fact that makes Music For The Age Of Miracles its own kind of miracle.
Q&A
Alasdair MacLean
What inspired you to revive The Clientele?
In the early 2000s, I used to hear an old man play the Chinese dulcimer at one end of the Greenwich foot tunnel, on the way to work. I’d always been enchanted by the sound – like a carousel crossed with a music box crossed with a harpsichord – and always wanted to get it on a Clientele record. Then I bumped into Anthony Harmer on a street corner in Walthamstow in 2014 – the first time I’d seen him in 20 years. I’d often wondered what had happened to him. It turned out he’d studied the santoor, an Iranian version of the dulcimer, and over decades become a virtuoso, at least by my standards. He suggested we have a jam together. Ant and I now lived three streets away from each other – the coincidences were piling up.
The arrangements and orchestration are so rich and inventive on the album, too. Why did you feel like the new songs demanded this kind of scope and lushness?
What you’re hearing are the edited, minimalist versions! We had to strip them down, as they were manic. But we’d always wanted to make a record with complex arrangements – we were always too skint and too impatient, though. The way we made this record and wrote these songs – very slowly, bit by bit, over months and years – meant we could add ideas as they came to us in a natural way. It felt like the right thing for the songs.
INTERVIEW: JASON ANDERSON
Morrissey appeared on last night’s Later… With Jools Holland, performing new single “Spent The Day In Bed” from his upcoming album Low In High School.
The album is set for a November 17 release via new label BMG.
You can watch the clip below.
Earlier this week, Morrissey claimed that the Ukip leadership election was rigged to ensure an anti-Islam activist did not win.
The singer made the comments during a live appearance on BBC 6 Music.
Morrissey said: “I was very surprised the other day – it was very interesting to me – to see Anne Marie Waters become the head of Ukip. Oh no, sorry she didn’t – the voting was rigged. Sorry, I forgot.”
As Morrissey’s comments were met by silence from the audience, he added: “You didn’t get it, did you? You obviously don’t read the news.”
Sharon Van Etten is releasing a deluxe edition of her 2009 debut album, because i was in love.
Called (it was) because i was in love, Van Etten says, “It was an innocent and beautiful record, which some of my newer fans may not even know about. This seemed like the perfect time to remix and remaster it, and give it a new life.”
The album arrives as a Vinyl Me Please exclusive (pre-order available November 9) and via Van Etten’s online shop. It will be available digitally everywhere.
(it was) because i was in love tracklist:
I Wish I Knew
Consolation Prize
For You
I Fold
Have You Seen
Tornado
Much More Than That
Same Dream
Keep
It’s Not Like
Holding Out
I’m Giving Up On You *
You Didn’t Really Do That *
* bonus tracks
“Down here on E Street, we’re devastated and heartbroken over the death of Tom Petty. Our hearts go out to his family and bandmates,” Springsteen writes. “I’ve always felt a deep kinship with his music. A great songwriter and performer, whenever we saw each other it was like running into a long lost brother. Our world will be a sadder place without him.”
Down here on E Street, we’re devastated and heartbroken over the death of Tom Petty. Our hearts go out to his family and bandmates.
Springsteen’s tribute follows similar accolades from Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney and Brian Wilson.
Dylan said: “It’s shocking, crushing news. I thought the world of Tom. He was great performer, full of the light, a friend, and I’ll never forget him.”
Sending love to Tom Petty and his family at this difficult time.
The Breeders have released a new song, “Wait In The Car“.
Released on 4AD, the single is the first music to be released by the line-up behind the band’s album, Last Splash – Kim and Kelley Deal, Josephine Wiggs and Jim Macpherson.
You can hear the song below:
The single will also form part of a series of 7”s releases.
Single One will be available at the band’s upcoming tour dates, starting October 15 (pressed on orange vinyl, featuring a cover of Amon Düül II’s 1970 track “Archangel’s Thunderbird”, recorded with Steve Albini in Chicago).
Single Two will be available exclusively at select independent record stores from October 27 (pressed on red vinyl, featuring a cover of Mike Nesmith’s “Joanne”).
Details of Single Three (featuring a cover of Devo’s ‘Gates Of Steel’ and pressed on yellow vinyl) are to announced later in the year.
Each version is limited to 1,500 copies worldwide.
Last night, as a sad day was drawing to a close in the UK, the gloom was further compounded by reports of Tom Petty’s death. Soon, in what became a live indictment of social media-era news, it transpired that the obituaries were premature – if only by what turned out to be a few hours. Amidst the chaos and memorials on Twitter, Neko Case nailed the moment poignantly: “I hope Tom Petty is not actually dead and makes a full recovery to see all the kind, sweet things you are are saying about him. What a life.”
I hope Tom Petty is not actually dead and makes a full recovery to see all the kind, sweet things you are are saying about him. What a life. ❤️
Bob Dylan, no less, was quick to articulate his condolences. “It’s shocking, crushing news,” he told Rolling Stone. “I thought the world of Tom. He was a great performer, full of the light, a friend, and I’ll never forget him.” Jack White’s Third Man Records, meanwhile, tried to make sense of how terrible events collided. “We’ve lost music lovers & music makers today,” they wrote. “We don’t know how to cope, so we continue to work, with broken hearts, in the name of music.”
We've lost music lovers & music makers today. We don’t know how to cope, so we continue to work, with broken hearts, in the name of music.
Clubbable, enduring, an absurdly talented everyman who seemed to bridge the gap between the multitudes of music lovers and the rock giants who became his peers; Tom Petty was the most relatable of legends. When he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall Of Fame in June 2016, his speech captured a certain unshowy devotion to his art, and a humble awareness that his collaborators should be respected as a critical part of the process. “Writing a song for a rock band – you’d better bring a really good song, because they don’t take it well if it’s not,” he said. “Many times I’ve gone back to the drawing board… If no one ever wrote another song, we’d be fine. There’s plenty of songs. But I still do it. I love it, it’s a gift. Everybody can do it, but everybody can’t do it good.”
After the ceremony, Roger McGuinn – a key Petty hero who had become his sponsor that evening – told Uncut’s Jaan Uhelszki, ““Tom goes out of his way to be a good friend. He tries to give you a shot in the arm, if you need it. Like what he’s doing with Mudcrutch [the formative, pre-Heartbreakers band that Petty had just reformed]. Tom Leadon is a guitar teacher and Tom has elevated him to be a rock star for a month or two. It’s a very sweet thing to do.”
The picture that emerges of Tom Petty from such testimonies is of a humane pragmatist who was averse to imposing any mystical airs on what he did for a living. “I’m not Mr Laidback,” he admitted to Uncut’s Jason Anderson in 2014, though his music often achieved an elevated balancing act between a theoretically mellow California jangle and something more wired and uptight; something which gave Petty unlikely traction in the UK as a New Wave avatar at the start of the Heartbreakers’ recording career.
Graft and ambition are not always the most poetic ways of describing a creative talent, but they capture a certain workingman’s spirit innate to Petty, his endeavours and presentation; a spirit that, again, endeared him to both his fans and his storied rock friends. In Jason’s piece, Petty sat at home in Malibu and talked candidly about how he managed his temper, and how his single-mindedness had propelled him through such a long and extraordinary career. “One advantage I had over a lot of my friends,” he recalled, “[was] by the time I was 15, I knew what I wanted to do with my life. A lot of them didn’t way into their 20s. But I knew right away what my calling was, there was no question about it. I had no choice – I was fortunate in that way.”
It was a theme Petty echoed when he talked to Jaan Uhelszki in 2016, a couple of days after the Hall Of Fame show, in the sort of words that seem especially poignant today “I’ve come to realise that I’m always pushing the rock up the hill,” he said. “Because we don’t take the easy way. But that’s who we are and that’s the way we do it and it’s always worked out fine. And I’m going to keep doing it.”
Morrissey has claimed that the Ukip leadership election was rigged to ensure an anti-Islam activist did not win.
The singer made the comments during a live appearance on BBC 6 Music.
Morrissey said: “I was very surprised the other day – it was very interesting to me – to see Anne Marie Waters become the head of Ukip. Oh no, sorry she didn’t – the voting was rigged. Sorry, I forgot.”
As Morrissey’s comments were met by silence from the audience, he added: “You didn’t get it, did you? You obviously don’t read the news.”
Anne-Marie Waters, who has previously described Islam as “evil”, came second to Henry Bolton on Friday as the party elected its fourth leader within the space of a year.
Waters received 2,755 votes to Bolton’s 3,874.
The 6 Music session comes as Morrissey prepares to unveil his latest album, Low In High School, which is set for release on November 17.
Thom Yorke has announced a pair of live performances in California.
He will be joined by longtime producer Nigel Godrich and audiovisual artist Tarik Barri for both shows, which take place on December 12 at the Fonda Theatre in Los Angeles and on December 14 at the Fox Theater in Oakland.
The two dates are an addition to his previously announced appearance at Day for Night Festival in Houston, Texas on December 17.
Yorke has also announced his 2014 solo album Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes is being reissued via XL on December 8 on CD, vinyl and via streaming services.
Bob Dylan has led the tributes to Tom Petty, who had died aged 66.
In a statement to Rolling Stone, Dylan said: “It’s shocking, crushing news. I thought the world of Tom. He was great performer, full of the light, a friend, and I’ll never forget him.”
Petty was found unconscious after suffering a cardiac arrest at his Malibu home on Sunday, where he was rushed to UCLA Medical Centre and placed on life support.
Petty’s death was subsequently confirmed by Petty’s long-term manager Tony Dimitriades: “He died peacefully at 20:40 Pacific time (03:40 GMT Tuesday) surrounded by family, his bandmates and friends.”
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers played a final show last Monday [September 25], performing the last of three sold-out shows at the Hollywood Bowl to conclude their 40th anniversary tour.
Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, Carole King and more have also paid tribute to Petty on social media.
Sending love to Tom Petty and his family at this difficult time.
The Pink Floyd Exhibition: Their Mortal Remains will extend opening hours as well as stay open for a period of 42 hours before it closes on October 15.
Today [October 2] a final 4,500 tickets will become available.
The Victoria & Albert Museum‘s most visited UK music exhibition, Their Mortal Remains will open for the entire weekend of October 6 – October 8, welcoming visitors for 42 hours.
The Exhibition will also be opening its doors on selected days from 9:00am and will be open until 10:00pm where possible. Full available hours can be viewed by clicking here.
Two double albums of unreleased Tim Buckley recordings are set to be released next month.
Greetings From West Hollywood and Venice Mating Call collect live recordings from Buckley’s 1969 shows at The Troubadour in Los Angeles. They will be released on October 13 on Edsel Records in the UK and Manifesto in the US.
The records are the latest in a series of live albums released since Buckley’s death, including Live At The Folklore Center 1967 and Live At The Troubadour 1969.
You can hear “Buzzin’ Fly” below.
The tracklisting for Greetings From West Hollywood is: Disc One: Buzzin’ Fly
Strange Feelin’
Blue Melody
Chase The Blues Away
Venice Mating Call
Gypsy Woman
I Don’t Need It To Rain
Disc Two: Driftin’
(I Wanna) Testify
Anonymous Proposition
Lorca
I Had A Talk With My Woman
Nobody Walkin’
The tracklisting for Venice Mating Call is: Disc One: Buzzin’ Fly
Strange Feelin’
Blue Melody
Chase The Blues Away
Venice Mating Call
Gypsy Woman
I Don’t Need It To Rain
Disc Two: Driftin’
(I Wanna)Testify
Anonymous Proposition
Lorca
I Had A Talk With My Woman
Nobody Walkin’
Pearl Jam have released the documentary film Let’s Play Two and accompanying soundtrack album.
Directed by photographer Danny Clinch, the film documents the band’s performances at Wrigley Field on August 20 and 22, 2016 during the Chicago Cubs’ World Series championship season.
Let’s Play Two screens in the UK on October 4. You can find all screening details by clicking here.
The soundtrack is released on CD and vinyl.
Tracklisting for the album is:
Low Light
Better Man
Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town
Last Exit
Lightning Bolt
Black Red Yellow
Black
Corduroy
Given To Fly
Jeremy
Inside Job
Go
Crazy Mary
Release
Alive
All The Way
I’ve Got A Feeling
Roger Waters will play this year’s Barclaycard presents British Summer Time Hyde Park.
He’ll bring his Us + Them tour to London on Friday July 6, 2018.
You can watch a trailer for the show below:
Ticket prices start at £65.00 for general admission, rising to £249.90. Barclaycard and fanclub presale begins today (Monday October 2) while tickets go on sale to the general public on Friday October 6.
Bidin’ My Time, Chris Hillman’s first solo album in more than a decade, opens with a familiar tune: a new version of “Bells of Rhymney”, adapted by Pete Seeger from lyrics by the Welsh poet Idris Davies. Hillman has been living with the song for most of his life, having first recorded it for The Byrds’ 1965 debut, Mr Tambourine Man, an album that melded folk songs with electric guitars and invented a new genre, simply called folk rock. Naturally, Hillmans’ voice has changed over the last half-century, taking on a slightly gruffer grain and adding a soft twang to his syllables, but the guitars still chime like church bells and he still harmonises sweetly with former bandmate David Crosby and long-time collaborator Herb Pederson.
In the context of this lovely late-career comeback, which was produced by Tom Petty and features several members of the Heartbreakers, “Bells Of Rhymney” draws a straight line from the 2010s to the equally turbulent 1960s, and the lyrics have little to do with mining disasters in South Wales and everything to do with ageing folk rockers poring over memories of past glories. It becomes a song about folk rock, a song about The Byrds, a song about a generation trying to hold on to its fading dreams and deepest wishes. That bittersweet nostalgia colours every track that follows, as Hillman engages closely with his own past: not just the music he made, but the music he loves. He covers the Everly Brothers’ “Walk Right Back” with the faithfulness of a diehard fan and treats “When I Get A Little Money”, penned in 2016 by the Indiana singer-songwriter Nathan Barrow, like a lost classic.
While Hillman might have been overshadowed by his various bandmates living (Crosby, Stephen Stills) and dead (Gene Clark, Gram Parsons), he was an incredibly influential presence in the folk- and country-rock scenes of the 1960s. His background was bluegrass: he learned mandolin as a teenager and gigged around the Southern California circuit with the Scottsville Squirrel Barkers and the Golden State Boys (with future country star Vern Gosdin). Just when he was ready to give up music for an actual career, he was recruited to join The Byrds as a bass player, despite having never even touched the instrument. He remained with that group through massive hits and several lineup changes, finally jumping over to The Flying Burrito Brothers with Parsons. He played with Stills in Manassas in the 1970s, and in the ’80s enjoyed a series of country hits with Pederson and John Jorgenson in The Desert Rose Band. Since then he has toured as a solo artist and more recently as a duo with Pedersen. “I thought I really was done recording,” he says, “but along comes this record deal out of nowhere. Herb and Tom conjured up this idea to seduce me to do an album.”
The presence of Crosby and Roger McGuinn makes Bidin’ My Time as close to a Byrds reunion as we’re likely to get, and that alone makes the album compelling. Their voices still combine with a familiar magnetism, and Hillman manages to put fresh new twists on a few songs from their catalogue. “She Don’t Care About Time” was penned by Gene Clark for their other 1965 album, Turn! Turn! Turn!, but this new version sounds more like an afternoon’s reverie, as though Hillman was casually reminiscing about an old lover. And “New Old John Robertson” puts a fresh spin on a tune from 1968’s The Notorious Byrd Brothers. Hillman and McGuinn penned the song as a eulogy for an old man from Hillman’s hometown – who turned out to be a retired director of silent films, including 1920’s Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde. Hillman now brings a new perspective to the song, identifying more closely with the ageing artist even as he recasts the tale as a spry bluegrass number.
Bidin’ My Time draws from every corner of Hillman’s long career, mixing folk rock and country rock and bluegrass into an amiable sound, somehow both modest and ambitious. Except on the sentimental “Such Is the World That We Live In”, that nostalgia sounds inviting and well-earned. The clean, crisp production recalls Rick Rubin’s work on Petty’s 1994 album Wildflowers, and Hillman underscores that connection by covering the title track to close the album on a ruminative note. “You belong among the wildflowers,” he sings fondly, and he could be speaking to some old lover, or perhaps to Old John Robertson, or even to any of the old friends who came around to sing along.
A few new tracks from previously teased albums surfaced this week, so please scroll down and check out further excellent music from Kamasi Washington, Courtney Barnett/Kurt Vile and, best of all I think, The Weather Station. Also we have strong new singles from Ty Segall and Aldous Harding, and something Satie-esque from Robert Haigh, who was my favourite junglist when he recorded as Omni Trio 20-odd years ago.
Plenty more here, of course. Further exposure to the Bitchin Bajas album makes me think it’s their masterpiece. Can’t wait to play you the Brigid Mae Power single (and also Beast, which is a new project by Koen Holtkamp from Mountains). RIP to Folke Rabe, master of drone. And don’t forget the Four Tet album drops tonight.
No idea now, two days on, why we played those Dexy’s singles, before you ask.
As Old Crow Medicine Show moved through the Noughties, they steadily outgrew their reliance on old-time American folk and blues, opting instead to create their own brand of raw-boned, high-energy string music. It was a transition that brought a fair amount of success during Nashville’s Americana boom, but founder member Willie Watson clearly had unfinished business. Since quitting the band in 2012, having played on six studio albums, the singer-guitarist has re-immersed himself in the trad canon.
2014’s fine solo debut, Folksinger Vol 1, offered variants on tunes by Lead Belly, Utah Phillips and others, alongside thoughtful arrangements of songs from the public domain. This follow-up pretty much follows the same formula, with Watson once again bringing in David Rawlings as producer (the pair first collaborated during Watson’s early OCMS days, since when he’s also been a member of David Rawlings Machine).
This time around, however, they’re joined from time to time by Nashville veterans The Fairfield Four, a woodwind ensemble, Punch Brothers bassist Paul Kowert, OCMS man Morgan Jahnig and, making a low-key appearance on drums, Rawlings’ partner Gillian Welch. Not that it feels remotely crowded. The guest contributions manage to be both telling and subdued, adding discreet shades of colour to Watson’s nimble picking style and the warm, conversational lilt of his voice.
His version of “Gallows Pole”, the centuries-old plea for deliverance once popularised by Led Zeppelin, is a thing of true beauty, Watson’s vocal ushered in on a lonely harmonica and carried aloft by oboe. Elsewhere, he uses Furry Lewis as a guide for the silvery “When My Baby Left Me”, his slide guitar punctuated by dry percussive tappings. Watson also proves himself a master of the nuances of banjo, be it grounding gospel spiritual “Dry Bones” in the earth or ensuring that “John Henry” shifts along as quickly as the fabled steel hammer. Watson is no rigid traditionalist, allowing these songs the fluidity that interpretation demands. Above all, the universal motifs of loss, redemption and freedom from bondage are brought home in moving, understated style.
Not content with the latest issue of Uncut (full details here) and our Ultimate Music Guide to Prince, we’re releasing another new magazine this Thursday. Bowie: A Life In Pictures is possibly our most opulent production yet, a treasure trove of authentically rare photographs in an ultra-collectable, none-more-glam mirrored cover. If you can’t make it to a UK shop, it’s available from Uncut’s online shop.
Bowie: A Life In Pictures is a lavish tribute to pop’s greatest chameleon, the artist who understood that the image could be just as revolutionary as the music. John Robinson and a team of meticulous Bowie obsessives have channelled all their passion and expertise into this latest magazine from the Uncut stable, which uses classic and rare photographs to fully chronicle how Bowie’s taste for reinvention changed the way pop stars looked – on a yearly basis.
From salvaged shots of Bowie’s earliest and most fleetingly active R&B bands, to his years as a bohemian, his breakthrough as Ziggy Stardust and the superstardom beyond, David Bowie: A Life In Pictures plots a dramatic course through each chapter in the artist’s 50 year career.
Bowie’s career took unpredictable turns – into movie-making, away from the public eye and back into the mainstream – but Bowie: A Life In Pictures follows him closely. Whether in posed portraits, intimate candids or thrilling reportage, every step of Bowie’s career – even his decade of his retirement – is handsomely illustrated. Discerning collectors will even note the presence of the occasional previously unpublished image.
At 86 (87 on September 7), the great tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins is the elder statesman among the survivors from jazz’s heroic age. They’re even talking about renaming the Williamsburg Bridge after him, in recognition of a famous sabbatical from public performance in the 1950s during which he searched for new musical solutions while playing alone on the windswept walkway, high above the East River, of the structure connecting Lower Manhattan with the district of Brooklyn from which it takes its present name.
Rollins’ return to action in 1959, when he felt ready to meet the challenge posed by the emergence of John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman, is mentioned in Robert Mugge’s documentary, a time capsule dominated by two performances from 1986, the year in which the film was made. Mugge begins and ends with extracts from an open-air performance at a sort of jazz picnic in the Saugerties, in upstate New York. Fronting his regular band of the time, Rollins unfurls extended improvs that show him at his most compelling and his most troublesome: tired rhetorical motifs investigated to the point of exhaustion alternate with brief bursts of astonishing invention.
The musical core of the film, however, is the performance in a Tokyo hall of the specially commissioned Concerto For Tenor Saxophone And Orchestra, on which he collaborated with the Finnish jazz composer Heikki Sarmanto. Sonny with strings turns out to be unfailingly pleasant and sometimes a little more than that, provoking the featured soloist to passages of concentrated lyricism, but it failed to establish a significant place in his large body of work. There are a couple of interviews with Rollins, filmed in New York and Tokyo; at one point he says that he is “closer to my saxophone than to Lucille” – his wife, who is sitting next to him.
We also hear thoughtful assessments from the critics Ira Gitler, Gary Giddins and Francis Davis, who pinpoints a reason why Rollins, although an acknowledged master, has not commanded the same degree of devotion as Coltrane or Coleman: “He never formed a band in his own image… And in a way that almost enhances his appeal, that lack of context. Sonny Rollins is the single most excellent standard of jazz you can possibly imagine.” But to appreciate that standard to the full, you would need to go back to something like the 1957 Blue Note recordings from the Village Vanguard, which is to say before the emergence of rivals chipped away at the young giant’s seemingly ironclad self-confidence, undermining his sense of his own place in the modern world he’d helped create.
EXTRAS: 6/10. Updated commentary by director Robert Mugge.
