JEFF TAMARKIN

Silver Jew | Drag City DVD

JEFF TAMARKIN — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 03:44:00 GMT

Drag City (2008)
Michael Tully’s 52-minute home movie/documentary follows the band as they schlep around Israel touring, shopping, and playing a handful of gigs.

I Got the Feelin': James Brown in the '60s

JEFF TAMARKIN — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 22:32:02 GMT

Shout! Factory
By 1968, James Brown wasn’t merely “Soul Brother No. 1”; he was an African-American icon with the power to stop riots.

Love Story

JEFF TAMARKIN — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 20:00:40 GMT

Love Story | Start
Love were one of rock’s first interracial bands, and Lee’s genius as their chief songwriter, musician, and bandleader is reinforced here by former band members, label associates, and others.

All You Need is Love

JEFF TAMARKIN — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 20:27:14 GMT

Voiceprint
Never less than fascinating and informative, although the narration tends toward the droll (it’s British, remember).

Ry Cooder

JEFF TAMARKIN — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:04:46 GMT

I, Flathead | Nonesuch/Perro Verde
Ry Cooder once again navigates a Southern California of strange realities and real strangers.

Rachid Taha

JEFF TAMARKIN — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 17:30:19 GMT

Rock El Casbah: The Best Of . . . | Wrasse
On this first career-spanning collection, which skitters around chronologically, the consistency of Rachid Taha's work is more evident than ever before.

Robyn Hitchcock

JEFF TAMARKIN — Tue, 20 May 2008 15:03:50 GMT

Sex, Food, Death . . . and Insects | A+E
Robyn Hitchcock, in one of many illuminating moments of reflection during this 53-minute documentary, posits that his songs “don’t appeal to meatheads.”

Billy Bragg

JEFF TAMARKIN — Tue, 06 May 2008 19:29:37 GMT

Mr. Love and Justice | Anti-
There is no irony in the title of Billy Bragg’s first album in six years.

Toumast

JEFF TAMARKIN — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 20:39:15 GMT

Ishumar | Real World
Toumast are soul rebels whose gritty/sweet trancy guitar jams reflect a life of struggle and turmoil.

Dave Douglas and Keystone

JEFF TAMARKIN — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 21:44:46 GMT

Moonshine | www.greenleafmusic.com
Moonshine borrows its title (and, ostensibly, its mood) from a Fatty Arbuckle film, one co-starring Buster Keaton.

In the Name of Love: Africa Celebrates U2

JEFF TAMARKIN — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 18:37:17 GMT

Shout! Factory
His good intentions and best efforts notwithstanding, economists are divided as to how effective Bono’s campaigning on behalf of Africa’s poor, diseased, and disenfranchised has been.

Ed Sanders

JEFF TAMARKIN — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 16:54:03 GMT

Sanders' Truckstop | Collector's Choice
Beer Cans on the Moon still met with a deserved shrug.

Patty Larkin

JEFF TAMARKIN — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 21:20:09 GMT

Watch the Sky | Vanguard
Patty Larkin made this a real solo album, sequestering herself in remote locations to build these dozen songs from the ground up.

Lifer

JEFF TAMARKIN — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 22:25:48 GMT

Catherine Russell’s rich musical path
As soon as you think you’ve got Catherine Russell figured out, she lobs another detail your way that throws the whole thing off.

As soon as you think you’ve got Catherine Russell figured out, she lobs another detail your way that throws the whole thing off. On the fiftysomething singer’s sophomore album, Sentimental Streak (World Village), she covers songs dug out from the deepest crevices of the catalogues of Alberta Hunter, Pearl Bailey, Lena Horne, Bessie Smith, and Ella Fitzgerald — jazz and blues divas whose careers were in full swing before she was born. So it makes sense when you learn that her late Panamanian-born dad, Luis Russell, was Louis Armstrong’s long-time musical director and her mom, Carline Ray, is a world-class bassist who still performs regularly at 82.

But then Russell fills in the blanks. The New York native — who opens for Levon Helm at the Orpheum on March 1 and comes to Scullers March 11 — spent considerable time on the road singing and playing in David Bowie’s band. She’s worked with Cyndi Lauper, Paul Simon and Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen. She digs the hell out of both classic soul and country; she’s taught at Berklee; she followed the Grateful Dead around from the late ’60s till Jerry Garcia’s death (“I was hooked”), even covering one of their tunes for a tribute album.

Russell has also been a huge fan of the Band for decades, so when the opportunity presented itself to record Sentimental Streak at Levon Helm’s studio in Woodstock, New York, she jumped. To produce, she brought in Larry Campbell, Dylan’s former road guitarist and more recently an associate of Helm and the Dead’s Phil Lesh. The only component missing was Helm himself.

“Levon was involved mixing his Dirt Farmer album, so he didn’t play on mine,” she says, referring to the erstwhile Band drummer’s recent Grammy-winning CD. “But every few days he’d come in and say, ‘Hey, how y’all doin’?’ He was really encouraging.”

Like 2006’s Cat, her solo debut, Sentimental Streak is an acoustic affair designed to showcase the dynamics of Russell’s sassy, nuanced delivery. Despite the vintage of the material, the arrangements aren’t retro; filtered through Russell’s iPod of a brain, the recording sounds as contemporary as anything being turned out by Amy Winehouse or Joss Stone, with that essential element of experience — something she admires in the singers she covers — factored in.

Nick Lowe: Jesus of Cool

JEFF TAMARKIN — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 17:05:56 GMT

Yep Roc
The reissue tacks on 10 additional tracks, making this expanded edition the final word on Jesus of Cool .

Karen Dalton

JEFF TAMARKIN — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 20:54:26 GMT

Cotton Eyed Joe | Delmore: 2CDs, 1 DVD
Dalton pours herself so fully into each tune, it’s no wonder she flamed out.

Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, and Ray Price

JEFF TAMARKIN — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 21:37:40 GMT

Last of the Breed | A+E
With a collective age of 225, Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, and Ray Price live up to this concert DVD’s title, which it shares with an equally superb studio album released last year.

Eric Clapton: Crossroads Guitar Festival 2007

JEFF TAMARKIN — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 20:00:30 GMT

Rhino
Every so often in Crossroads Guitar Festival 2007 you can see the beaming host, Eric Clapton, behind a stack of amps shooting photos of his fellow performers.

Norman Granz Presents Improvisation

JEFF TAMARKIN — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 19:23:41 GMT

Eagle Eye
The 1950 footage is only part of the story: the program is fleshed out with equally dazzling later performances.

Gram Parsons

JEFF TAMARKIN — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 20:11:35 GMT

Archives Vol. 1 | Amoeba
These two discs go a long way toward supporting the notion that Parsons was a pivotal player in the rise of country rock.