HIDDEN GEMS

Here’s 4 songs you may or may not know well, re-done by four of the best acts in Country music.

Dolly Parton | “Stairway to Heaven”

Great: it’s a bluegrass version of Led Zeppelin’s inescapable, nonsensical anthem about buying heavenly stairways and bustling hedgerows. Did the world really need this? Well, actually, I’d be inclined to argue yes. Dolly Parton is in good voice (frequently multi-tracked) on this cover version, from her 2002 album Halos & Horns, and she delivers one of her most passionate performances. Plus, it helps that she is backed by an intricate band arrangement that never explodes into Zep-ish bombast, but builds and climaxes satisfyingly, with a choir providing the intensity previously provided by loud rock guitar. And, as this track makes clear, Dolly’s high notes beat Robert Plant’s any day.

Rosanne Cash | “I’m Movin’ On”

For her newest album, Rosanne Cash has done a covers record that comes with an interesting backstory. Her father, Johnny Cash, made up a list of 100 Essential Country Songs for her in the ‘70s, to make up for gaps in her music education, and she has taken 12 of those songs and re-done them on the album, titled appropriately The List. There’s a lot of good tracks on The List, but her cover of Hank Snow’s “I’m Movin’ On” stands out for its atmosphere. Sounding like a less-clanky Tom Waits ballad, the band shuffles casually, while the slide-y lead guitar part evokes movie images of desolate highways and diner jukeboxes. Cash sounds laid back, sometimes breathy, and full of swagger in her vocal delivery, a chanteuse-y approach that folds nicely into the recording.

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HIDDEN GEMS
From wholly original soundtracks like Curtis Mayfield’s work for Super Fly to iconic oldies compilations like American Grafitti, the 1970s was the first golden age for the movie soundtrack.

After a glut of ’80s crap, the art form of the movie soundtrack bounced back in the ’90s. Pulp Fiction is the key example of a soundtrack that was not only essential to the movie it supported, but became essential listening on its own (although the soundtrack to Tarantino’s follow-up, Jackie Brown, gets my vote for soundtrack of the decade). Other soundtracks were so popular (Lost Highway, Empire Records) that more people had them in their CD collections than had ever bought a ticket to see the movie. The following 4 selections were not so popular, but they remain worthwhile listening experiences whether you’ve seen the movie or not.

Out of Sight | Music From the Motion Picture
1998 was the moment when DJs were making their biggest impact as solo artists in mainstream music, thanks partially to Fatboy Slim’s “Rockafeller Skank.” One DJ who got a leg up in this climate was David Holmes, whose first 2 albums were more often groovy than glitchy. Hired to do the music for Steven Soderbergh’s French New Wave-style take on an Elmore Leonard novel, Out of Sight, Holmes delivered a super-cool score that’s funky without being hectic and is ambient without being somnambulant. The soundtrack album seamlessly blends Holmes’s music cues with dialogue from the film and classic hits by The Isley Brothers, Dean Martin, and more. Twelve years later, it still sounds fresh and unembarassing in a way that those Fatboy Slim records sadly don’t.

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HIDDEN GEMS

No, you won’t find anything about Sufjan Stevens here.

Loudon Wainwright III | High Wide & Handsome: The Charlie Poole Project
Maybe this gem isn’t quite so hidden—it did just win the Grammy for Best Traditional Folk Album—but I doubt you’ve heard it yet. Loudon Wainwright and some of his famous family (son Rufus, daughters Martha and Lucy, plus the ex-wife’s kin, The Roches) create an odd sort of tribute album to Charlie Poole, who was an old-time banjo player from the 1920s. You see, Poole wasn’t a songwriter, so Wainwright and Co. instead perform old-timey-sounding original songs inspired by Poole’s life, along with various other songs that Poole made famous with his recordings. The tales of boozing and hard living contained within wouldn’t seem out of place on an average Loudon Wainwright album, making the resemblance between the old-time picker and the modern-day musician who is paying him tribute a bit uncanny..

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Sometimes musicians return to the studio after big hit albums by trying to top that album commercially. However, here are 4 albums where the artists instead went in a memorably weirder, less-commercial direction.

HIDDEN GEMS

Todd Rundgren | A Wizard, A True Star
After the seeming fluke success of his 1972 double-album Something/Anything? — which was full of soft-rock staples you’re sure to hear now and again in your friendly neighborhood grocery or at the dentist’s office — Todd Rundgren responded by making his weirdest, least accessible album to that point. To call this album “schizo” is an understatement. The first half is dominated by oddball 60-to-90-second songs, typified by the track “Dogfight Giggle,” where the sounds of dogs barking and someone giggling are sped-up and played over and over. Even when the album relaxes into more conventional songs, the choices are odd: Rundgren (who, it should be pointed out, is one of the whitest people in the world) does a 10-minute medley of R&B hits including “Ooh Baby Baby” and “La La Means I Love You.” If you have the right sense of humor or sense of adventure, you will find this album greatly rewarding.

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HIDDEN GEMS

Orchestre Stukas | L’Afrique Danse Presents Orchestre Stukas
Yesterday was a sad day in the music world, and devastating for the world at large. I was once the wallowing type, but I’m instating a rule for myself this winter: NO DOWNER MUSIC. So I’m glad that I just found Orchestre Stukas, (also sometimes known as The Stukas Boys?), a 1970s soukous/rumba-esque band from the former Zaire. The Stukas Boys were fronted by Lita Bembo, the Congolese version of James Brown, who you can see in action here. Fast-paced, with a psych guitar and fun, deft rhythm, this four-song record is a good way to keep your mood afloat for around forty minutes. Then just watch some more of their videos, I guess. Well, I guess the rest of the week is going to be Orchestre Stukas and Jay Reatard on repeat for me. Try to feel better, world.
by Erin Sheehy

Willie Nelson | Willie Nelson Sings Kristofferson
Willie Nelson always seems to be putting out a new album, whether he’s taken the time to get good material together (2006’s Songbird, 2009’s American Classic) or not (the other twelve albums he’s made in the past decade). This album, one of three that Willie put out in 1979, is a gold nugget with a modest concept that seems to have gotten lost in the expanse of Willie’s discography. It doesn’t get much simpler than this: find a good country-rock backing band and cover a bunch of top-notch songs written by Kris Kristofferson, including “Me and Bobby McGee” (a prior hit for Janis Joplin), “Sunday Morning Coming Down” (a hit for Johnny Cash), and “Help Me Make It Through The Night” (an unjustly forgotten hit for Sammi Smith). The resulting album is a low-key pleasure.
by Justin Remer

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HIDDEN GEMS
Dan Melchior’s Broke Revue | Heavy Dirt
Billy Childish is known for his millions of side-projects almost as much as his work influencing garage punk as we know it. But what about the people HE works with? Holly Golightly’s had her White Stripes fun (“It’s True That We Love One Another”), but what of Dan Melchior, longtime collaborator with both? He’s had his Stripe-y touch too, with Dan Melchior’s Broke Revue opening for the band, but this is about Heavy Dirt, released on garage mainstays In the Red Records, during the now excellently vintage year of 2001. With the right dash of blues, and Melchior’s ever-so-slightly British touch, this is a strong album that offers a familiar The Headcoats-esque sound.
by allison levin

Various Artists | Skulls Without Borders
I was listening to Dan Melchior when allison sent me her writeup of Heavy Dirt, so I decided it was fate and that I had to tell you about Skulls Without Borders, Siltbreeze’s new limited-edition compilation that features a menacing, aloof track from Melchior, along with other gnarlies from Kurt Vile, Sic Alps and more. All in all, this little comp is the auditory version of something you find growing under a dumpster – grimy, fuzzy, and fascinating. Siltbreeze has sold out of their 10”, but digital copies abound in the blog world, and if you prefer not to freeload from awesome artists and labels (insert finger-wag here), Siltbreeze should have a digital edition available to buy soon. Listen here.
by Erin Sheehy
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HIDDEN GEMS
Piglet | Lavaland
Honest question: how many people outside of Chicago have heard this band? Among my Chicago friends, who still take math-rock seriously (obligatory reference to Noumenon, who will finally release their debut EP in two months, and coined the term “party-math”), Lavaland has maintained something of a revelatory status, indisputable for its finger tapping and bat-shit time signatures. For those of us outside Chicagoland, Piglet is one of the only easy steps in to Chicago math: blistering in its technicality, but approachable enough to share a couple Old Styles in the back of the house show.
by Max Sebela

Bustin’ Melonz | Watch Ya Seeds Pop Out
This album is available for download on plenty of blogs, but it’s hard to find out much about Brooklyn’s Bustin’ Melonz, who sorta dropped off the map after 1994’s Watch Ya Seeds Pop Out. The production is simple and scrappy, as is the MC’ing, but the album’s full of these cool understated moments, like when the beat drops out just for a second under “Walkin on air in my Airwalks./ People talk when I walk through the streets of New York” in “Don’t Big Up.” With its staticky skits between songs and its minimal jazz riffs, Watch Ya Seeds Pop Out sounds like something you’d play on the stoop when the sidewalk’s steaming and you can’t wait to hear that Italian Ice cart jangling down the block.
by Erin Sheehy
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HIDDEN GEMS
Rappin’ 4-Tay | Don’t Fight The Feelin’
If you were listening to hip hop on the radio in ’94, maybe you remember the song “Playaz Club”: smooth boasting over a surprisingly poignant guitar-laden beat and the intimation of real sexy happenings throughout… “more champagne, Mister 4-Tay?” But who’s Mister 4-Tay? Rappin’ 4-Tay is a San Franciscan who’s dropped 14 albums over the past 18 years, with his second, Don’t Fight The Feelin’, outshining all the others. It’s a killer, but relatively uncelebrated, document of all the badassness that was percolating out on the West Coast in the early nineties, complete with high-pitched synth whistle and lots of references to dank.
by Erin Sheehy

Gillian Welch | Time (The Revelator)
Gillian Welch’s third album is the one where she got it all right. Welch and partner David Rawlings recorded and performed the whole thing themselves – it honestly doesn’t even seem as though there’s a single overdub throughout, just Welch’s guitar and Rawlings’ guitars and banjo. Though born and raised in California, all evidence of Welch’s sunshine-y upbringing is nowhere to be found, and Time (The Revelator) is pure moody Appalachian country. Highlights include the title track, “Elvis Presley Blues” and closer “I Dream a Highway” (arguably the greatest extremely long song ever written).
by Brook Pridemore


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