Second collection of old-school country and western covers from Norah Jones and co. ..By sheer dint of the fact she plays the piano and occasionally dips into the Great American Songbook, Norah Jones finds herself marketed as a lounge jazz singer, a category error compounded by the fact that her sales have all but bankrolled the Blue Note label for more than a decade. Of course, she’ll be the first to admit that she’s not a jazz musician.
Fired up by disco and punk, Jagger’s swagger returns, with a disc of unreleased songs...Wrongly or rightly, the allegations against the Stones came thick and fast in 1977. They’d lost their edge. They’d become gluttonised, lazy, too rich and bored to care. Some of them had the temerity to be in their mid-thirties (NME called them “The Strolling Bones”). The urgent sound of punk had made their jet-set rock seem passé.
A mixed bag today, as I contemplate giving up and playing a bunch of old Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings records in preparation for tonight’s Hammersmith gig.
Been a while, but I have a selection of excuses: finishing one issue of Uncut; pondering a longish Album Of The Month review that I’ll post here asap; getting deep into the business of another Uncut Ultimate Music Guide, to follow up our Bowie edition; crunching the votes for the mag’s albums/reissues of 2011 charts; and so on.
