Album Review : Jackie Greene : Till the Light Comes
Jun 28, 2010 Album Reviews
In the much anticipated (at least by me) follow up to Giving Up the Ghost, Greene returns with another home run of an album. I personally enjoy everything he has ever released, but he seems to have really gotten into a groove with his last three efforts.
Till the Light Comes offers everything you could want from a Greene album, some rockers, a few folkier tunes, great lyrics, superior musicianship and a feeling of satisfaction when you finish listening.
With the help of his new found Deadhead fans this will undoubtedly be his best selling release and it’s great to see him getting this kind of success albeit about 6 years too late in my opinion. I am glad that he did not seem to forget who he is and pander to that audience.
This is an album that you can listen all the way through without skipping a single track which is a rarity in the day of iTunes. It’s always refreshing when relatively young artists embrace the methods of the past and release a good album.
There are a few definite standouts on this record as with any release. “1961″ is a ballad that tells the story of a man who gets a woman pregnant and does not know it in 61. It follows their lives and that of their son until the son finds the man on his dying bed. It’s a goose bump inducing tune.
Another track that I am taken with is ” Spooky Tina”, an upbeat tune that describes the narrator’s desire to be with the not so desirable sister of a girl that everyone wants.
One last phenomenal track is “Medicine”. This is a backlash towards the practice of over-diagnosing and over-medicating every little mental issue people can come up with a name for. I love this song because it reflects the way I feel about the subject matter. Sometimes being blue is just a part of life and it often allows us to see things in a different light that leads to an improved life. As Greene puts it “I don’t want your medicine, creeping around fucking with my head”.
With American Myth, Giving up the Ghost, and now Till the Light Comes, Jackie Greene has delivered as good as a three record run as we’ve seen in the last decade. Add in the two EP’s he’s released in that time and he just keeps serving up great music on a pretty regular basis. Also the fact that he has yet to reach his 30th birthday makes me happy to know that I should be growing old while listening to new releases from him.
You can find out more on Greene and order the new record which is officially released tomorrow on his website, www.jackiegreene.com, where he has been streaming full versions of the songs from the new one all week.
Tags: album review, Jackie Greene
Youtube Clips : For Father’s Day
Jun 20, 2010 Youtube Clip
Tomorrow is Father’s Day, and I thought I would look up some videos that are about dads that I like and share them with all of you. Some of them are from the perspective of the child and some of them are the dad looking at his children. Anyways Happy Father’s Day to my dad and to all the dads out there.
“A Face Among the Crowd” Jackie Greene
“Things I Wish I’d Said” Rodney Crowell
“Your Dad Did” John Hiatt
“Happy Father’s Day” Ronny Cox: it’s a Jonathan Byrd song but this is the only version of it I could find on Youtube and I just love this song.
“Father and Son” Cat Stevens
“Missing You” Todd Snider
“Garbage Man” Greg Klyma
There’s a ton more out there, but these are a few that I like and could find on Youtube. Once again Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there.
Tags: cat stevens, greg klyma, Jackie Greene, John Hiatt, jonathan byrd, Rodney Crowell, ronny cox, todd snider, Youtube Clip
Rediscovering The Dead
May 7, 2010 Rant
I’m sure like me, many of you have been burnt out a band for one reason or another. For me that band was the Grateful Dead. During my teens and early twenties everyone I hung out with were Deadheads. Subsequently all we ever listened to was the Dead or some band closely related to them. Like many a youth I was hooked.
I listened non-stop, collected a treasure trove of live shows, and immersed myself into the music. The Dead opened so many doors for me musically, not just in what they played. So often I’d hear a song and find out that it was a cover and begin looking into where it came from. While my tastes have always been very eclectic, there were many times that a specific song or artist they covered was something I was not already familiar with.
Over time I begin to tire of constantly hearing the same ol’ stuff wherever I went and more and more I found myself not wanting to listen to them at all if I was alone or the one in control of what was playing. With the passing years I always considered the Dead one of my favorite bands, but rarely did I listen to them. I listened to a lot of their various side projects when I felt the urge and when they came on shuffle I often go ahead and skip to the next track.
Within the last week I have begun the daunting task of compiling all of my live shows on my computer from cd. When I started I thought, what the hell, I’ll start with the largest quantity which happened to be the 700 or so Dead shows I have gathered. As I was making my way through the decades of material I started to listen to random things.
The more I listened the more I remembered why I like them in the first place… they were really fucking good. Here was a band with some serious live chops, that included a great lead guitar player, bass player, two killer drummers, and a plethora of keyboard players. Along with fine musicianship was the fact that at any given time one of three very good vocalists (four if you count Phil Lesh’s Ben Steinlike monotonous drawl) would take the mic and a show or album could take on a whole different feeling.
To top it all off, the songs are great. Obviously like any artist there are gonna be some bad albums (Go to Heaven, anyone? ) and some songs or performances that aren’t going to be your cup of tea (90% percent of anything that Donna Jean could be found screaching on) but with a catalog that spans thirty years and countless available live shows it’s easy to pick through the rare downers and find the gems.
I’ve really been listening to these live shows a lot. I now immediately skip all versions of Space or Drums (because let’s face it those were for times when mind altering substances weren’t limited to only sleep deprivation), I’m not really one for most instrumental music in the first place. I do however still marvel at their ability to seemingly slide into any genre whether it be rock, country, bluegrassy, blues and do it well.
Some of the stuff I am really getting sucked back into right now are any of the Pigpen era shows because he has always been my favorite member of the Dead and I’m a fiend for some dirty blues. I am also really digging the shows from 1970 and 1980 that included the acoustic sets which were just laced with Jerry and Bobby singing country and traditional folk covers as well as songs that fit that bill from their own songbook. Finally I am loving the shows where Brent Mydland came into his own and began singing more, think 1982.
Also worth noting, I have been obsessed with downloading Phil and Friends shows now. I never really was a fan of Phil singing but I love Warren Haynes who was the singer/guitar with Phil for like three years.Also as I believe I’ve mentioned before, I am obsessed with Jackie Greene who for the last two or three years has been handling a lot of the vocals for Phil as well as playing guitar and keyboards. Interestingly enough, Greene was not a Dead fan prior to being asked by Lesh to join him and was discovering these great songs as he was learning to play them.
At the end of the day I guess the lesson for me is that some of the things we write off or forget about really are worth remembering and experiencing again. I am having a great time dancing in my mind to all these songs and once again I know why it is that it takes me ten scrolls to get through The Grateful Dead section of Itunes.
Tags: bob weir, bootlegs, brent mydland, grateful dead, Jackie Greene, jerry garcia, phil lesh, pigpen, warren haynes
List : 5 Things That Would Make Me Happy
Apr 22, 2010 Lists
Everyone likes lists, they make things easy to see and understand. Furthermore, everyone likes making lists, whether it be top-tens, things to do, best/worst, etc. Well what the hell, I thought I’d go ahead and make my own list. This list has no glue to hold it together except that these are all things that would me happy in the realm of music. The items on the list appear in no particular order. Some of these inevitably will happen, some could possibly happen, and some are completely ludicrous. So keeping in mind those caveats, let’s get to the list.
1. A new Jackie Greene album soon.
Not only do I love Jackie Greene but, it has now been two years since Giving up the Ghost came out. Let me also (since this is my list) ask that this hypothetical new Jackie Greene record be as good as its predecessor. Some would probably argue that 2006′s American Myth is Greene’s best record, but I’m here to tell you that they would be wrong. Ghost had a little of everything that Greene can give you, some folky, some bluesy, a little pop feel, and a couple of down right ball busting rock n roll songs. So here’s to hoping that Mr. Greene sees this and expedites that new record.
2. The forever rumored to be coming soon follow up to Voodoo from R&B singer D’angelo finally comes and is somewhat worth the wait.
D’angelo ? You might ask, not necessarily in line with the other artists that have been written about in the short life of this site. Yes, D’angelo this guy is great. It’s like Snoop Dogg and Otis Redding had a love child and God granted this imaginary child with a kick ass band and said go forth and sing. Then in this story the hero child seems to squander his talent by making only two albums in fifteen years, touring sporadically, and smoking entirely too much pot. I still listen Voodoo on a regular basis, and this new record has been the subject of rumors off and on for years. The latest of these rumors has the record hitting the shelves late this summer and perhaps having Prince involved. Needless to say it has me interested.
3. Fred Eaglesmith’s new release, Cha Cha Cha, reminds me why I love Fred Eaglesmith again.
Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate what Eaglesmith did on Tinderbox, I’m all for an artist stretching their wings from time to time and it’s not like I hated the record, it was just not one of my favorites. For that matter neither was Milly’s Cafe (which by the way was not out of his wheelhouse) nor was Dusty. So that makes three straight studio records since I was really thrilled about an Eaglesmith release. I have liked all three of those releases, but man I would kill for another Lies, Lipstick and Gasoline or Drive-In Movie.
4. Tommy Womack finds some commercial success.
I could think of nobody else that survives in the indy singer/ songwriter world that deserves it more than Tommy. The man is a great songsmith, a talented guitar player, an amazing performer, and most importantly a genuinely good guy. I have had the pleasure of promoting a number of shows with Tommy in the last couple of years and he is always very humble and grateful for not only the gig itself but, for everyone who comes out to see him. Tommy has seen some good fortunes recently with a new Daddy record and with Jimmy Buffett choosing to cover a song that Tommy co-wrote with his pal Will Kimbrough. So here’s to hoping the Parrotheads embrace “Nobody from Nowhere” and it brings some recognition and financial windfall to Tommy’s doorstep.
5. Tom Waits turns back the clock.
The first Tom Waits record I got into was the Grammy winning Mule Variations, so needless to say I am a huge fan of his newer records. However I feel that I got cheated by my not being able to witness the great live shows he was putting on during the mid to late 70′s. I’d love for Waits to do a tour of small, smoke filled bars with a stripped down band, sit down behind the piano or stand at the mic and start delivering versions of the songs off of Small Change, Blue Valentine, and Heart of Saturday Night. Not only would it just be an amazing atmosphere to be able to experience it would be great to see where songs like “Christmas Card from a Hooker” and “Small Change” would go with Tom now. This one would fall under that ludicrous heading, but one can hope.
So there you have the first official list on The Broken Jukebox. I would imagine I am not alone in wanting these things to happen. Feel free to drop a comment with a few things you would like to see happen this year in music.
Tags: D'angelo, Fred Eaglesmith, Jackie Greene, Lists, Tom Waits, Tommy Womack
