VCBR~223 kbps | 80 MB | LINKS
“Pretty Bird” is Kathy Mattea’s first studio album in six years, following 2012’s “Follow Me Home.” The major reason for this gap was Mattea’s realization that her voice was changing so much, she felt as if she was losing it altogether. Through vocal coaching and dedicated perseverance she has emerged, singing in a lower, albeit richer voice, for a strong album of interpretative covers.
Keep in mind that Mattea has won two Grammys, four CMA Awards, has five gold albums and a platinum collection of her greatest hits. So, to have lost her voice, or least the voice she had earning all those accolades, would be incredibly jarring. Yet, phrasing and nuance develop only through experience.
Recorded over the course of a year with roots music ace Tim O’Brien at the helm, the mostly acoustic album opens with a playful take on Oliver Wood’s sultry “Chocolate On My Tongue” before moving into a soulful rendition of Bobbie Gentry’s “Ode To Billie Joe.” She then takes on another challenging tune in Mary Gauthier’s “Mercy Now,” delivering it even more tenderly than originally envisioned. O’Brien plays on several of the tunes, and as expected, recruited top notch session players like Charlie McCoy, Dan Dugmore, Victor Krauss, Dennis Crouch, Bill Cooley and Ian Fitchuk among them.
Once she recovered to her now current voice, it’s not surprising that she could pull songs from so many different eras and cultures and make them fit into a coherent album. You’ve heard many, if not all these songs before, but it’s unlikely you’ve heard them so carefully rendered.
Take for example Joan Osborne’s “St. Teresa,” which takes on personal importance in view of the ravages that addiction has wrought on Mattea’s home state of West Virginia. She and O’Brien master stripped-down evocative songs like the British traditional “He Moves Through The Fair,” allowing Mattea to wring every drop of emotion from the lyrics. She sings so credibly in “Tell Me What You Ache For” that you can feel the yearning. Similarly, she closes with the arresting title track, a Hazel Dickens tune that she sings a capella. Before that she has the background vocals of Suzy Ragsdale, Odessa Settles and Calvin Settles for the gospel tunes “Holy Now” and “I Can’t Stand up Alone.”
The classically-trained Mattea found a jazz-centric vocal coach, developed a fresh approach to singing and forced herself to break habits she’d long relied on. Age had helped open Mattea’s lower register, and songs she’d previously shied away from suddenly emerged with a new vibrant life. Thankfully Mattea is back.
320 kbps | 300 MB | LINKS
CD 1
1. Take The A Train (0:37)
2. Under My Thumb (4:21)
3. When The Whip Comes Down (4:46)
4. Let’s Spend The Night Together (4:37)
5. Shattered (4:28)
6. Neighbours (5:04)
7. Black Limousine (3:58)
8. Just My Imagination (7:28)
9. Twenty Flight Rock (2:18)
10. Let Me Go (4:45)
11. Time Is On My Side (4:14)
12. Beast Of Burden (7:23)
13. Waiting On A Friend (5:07)
14. Let It Bleed (6:49)
CD 2
1. You Can’t Always Get What You Want (9:03)
2. Introductions (0:51)
3. Little T & A (3:43)
4. Tumbling Dice (6:02)
5. She’s So Cold (4:26)
6. All Down The Line (4:08)
7. Hang Fire (3:17)
8. Miss You (5:43)
9. Start Me Up (4:33)
10. Honky Tonk Women (3:52)
11. Jumping Jack Flash (8:01)
12. (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction (5:27)
13. Star Spangled Banner (2:26)
320 kbps | 175 MB | LINKS
Ukulele superstar Jake Shimabukuro, one of the most exceptional and innovative ukulele players in the history of the instrument, will release his newest record, The Greatest Day, on August 31, 2018 via Mailboat Records.
The album was recorded at Music City’s famed Ronnie’s Place studio with producer R.S. Field – the same city, studio, and producer as 2016’s “adventurous and dazzling” (Associated Press) Nashville Sessions. Returning as the ace rhythm section are bassist Nolan Verner and drummer Evan Hutchings; the group added guitarist Dave Preston to expand upon the sound they started creating two years ago.
“On the last record, it was pretty much the sound of a live trio, which sounded fresh, raw and organic,” says Shimabukuro. “Now we’ve expanded to a quartet, which has added more colors and variety to the overall production. Once we recorded the live takes, we experimented with overdubs, and added horns, strings and keys, and other funky sounds. There are even some vocals on a few cuts.”
The 12 studio tracks that comprise The Greatest Day feature some of Shimabukuro’s most imaginative and adventuresome playing yet. Half of the album is devoted to originals, on which the instrumentalist reaches new heights of compositional distinction. And on the covers, Shimabukuro’s prodigious skills allow him to transcend his material – no mean feat considering some of the classics and standards he’s tackling.
VBR~237 kbps | 84 MB | LINKS
Singer-songwriters are known for telling stories in their songs, and Little Rocker Adam Faucett really leans into that method and takes it to the next level on “King Snake”, the mournful opener to his new LP, “It Took the Shape of a Bird”, out today from premiere Little Rock Americana label Last Chance Records. The song starts with a matter-of-fact rundown of early events in a young girl’s life, before soaring into his well-known, impassioned bellow and getting more figurative lyrically. Although told from the point-of-view of a character, since Faucett ostensibly has never been a young girl, it’s obvious that he is using the narrative device of the song to express feelings about his own life, and this is a recurring theme that keeps flowing like the Arkansas River throughout the rest of the record. Lots of characters, yet also lots of personal confessions if you can decipher the beautiful, but sometimes cryptic and dense, lyrics.
If you were already a fan of Faucett’s remarkable catalog, particularly 2014’s “Blind Water Finds Blind Water”, you will not be disappointed in the least with this new release. It was recorded in the same place (Blue Chair Recording Studio) with the same personnel (his backing band, The Tall Grass, and Blue Chair owner Darian
Stribling), but that by no means should indicate that it doesn’t still sound fresh. That’s one of the beautiful things about Adam’s music; he’s not exactly trying to reinvent the wheel, but he still manages to make everyone else that came before and does what he does sound sadly impotent by comparison. These songs cut deep, indicative of wounds that should be fatal but were somehow survived, and the scars look cool enough to get you laid.
If you’ve seen him perform live lately, and chances are you have because the man is a road dog, you’ll probably recognize at least a few of these songs. “Dust”, one of the album’s standouts, has featured heavily in his sets for quite a while now. A solo live recording was even released as a “bootleg” version by Fayetteville label Let’s Talk Figures last year. That performance was amazing, but this polished up, fully realized studio version is better. The Tall Grass is higher than ever, in fine form, filling in what needs to be filled in, and playing airtight. There are even some unexpected keyboard flourishes on this one that make the emotional punch even stronger.
Curious about the meaning behind the title? Well, doing a Google search for the phrase “it took the shape of a bird” won’t really help you, but it will lead you to an assortment of links to purchase and/or stream this record (like this one). Even after reading the lyrics I was stumped, so I finally straight up asked him what it meant. It’s an obscure reference to the Salem Witch Trials. One of the putative witches claimed that Satan came to her and “it took the shape of a bird.” In the context of the album, it makes a lot of sense for this to be the title, as darkness and spiritual matters are constant throughout the record, and this type of vague historical reference is one of Faucett’s specialties. “Mackay-Bennett” is another great example of this. The historical CS Mackay-Bennett was the ship that recovered most of the corpses from the wreck of the Titanic. Despite the title, the song isn’t about the real-life Mackay-Bennett, it’s about an ill-fated relationship where one person is always rescuing the other from something. There’s a great deal of lovelorn sorrow in these songs. It’s a fantastic break-up record.
If you’re in or around central Arkansas this weekend, you should head out to the legendary White Water Tavern Saturday night and celebrate the release of “It Took the Shape of a Bird” with Adam Faucett and the Tall Grass. Adam’s fellow Little Rock performer Isaac Alexander is also playing, and you can stock up on all the best merch, including a copy of the new record. It’s well worth your money and your time. Faucett will naturally be hitting the road hard for the rest of the year to promote it, so help him do so well-funded and take advantage of what might be your last chance to see him for a little while.
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