WERNER TRIESCHMANN

The Whigs: Mission Control

WERNER TRIESCHMANN — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 17:57:08 GMT

ATO
The Whigs began life as a guitar/bass/drums college band toiling away in Athens.

Reba McEntire

WERNER TRIESCHMANN — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 17:12:58 GMT

Reba Duets | MCA
Reba McEntire became famous in the 1980s, when country music consisted of ballads as big as the hair of the singers who sang them.

Sideshow and tell

WERNER TRIESCHMANN — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 22:35:47 GMT

The strange and wonderful world of Baby Dee
She goes by the name Baby Dee, even though she was born in Cleveland in 1953.

ODDBALL: And yet Safe Inside the Day is an accessible showcase.

She goes by the name Baby Dee, even though she was born in Cleveland in 1953. And her résumé reads like something out of the Katherine Dunn novel Geek Love: a decade as the organist and music director at a Catholic church in the Bronx, then on to the Coney Island circus, where she played accordion and was billed as the “Bilateral Hermaphrodite” (in part because she is a transgendered woman). And, having received classical training as a harpist, she went on to tour Europe and North America with the Bindlestiff Family Circus. Oh, and when she wasn’t on the road, she performed on the streets of Greenwich Village with her harp and a tall tricycle. In short, she’s spent the past several decades becoming a legend in the performance-art underground. Now she’s signed a deal with hip Chicago indie Drag City to release her new album, Safe Inside the Day.

It’s not her first album: from 2000 through 2005 she recorded several discs for a tiny label run by British musician David Tibet, Durtro Records. But Safe Inside the Day will likely bring the first real exposure to an American audience for the flamboyant Dee, who supports the disc with a show at the Lily Pad this Sunday. The album finds her working with an intriguing collection of indie-rock luminaries: Bonnie “Prince” Billy (a/k/a Will Oldham), Matt Sweeney (of Zwan and Superwolf), Andrew W.K. But Dee is very much her own show — and an accessible one at that. On the new disc, she delivers cabaret torch songs with a touch of vaudeville playfulness anchored by heavy percussive piano runs, as well as straightforward instrumentals (“A Christmas Jig for a Three-Legged Cat” and “Flowers on the Tracks”) that, pretty and accomplished, wouldn’t be out of place in the hands of — honest — Billy Joel. There are hints of Kurt Weill in the theatrical flair of “The Only Bones That Show.”

And then there’s the influence of those years in the circus. “My music back then,” she tells me over the phone, “was a bit opaque — a little brassy. I like to think I’ve gotten away from that, but I still go there once in a while. I always think of Felix the Cat and his bag of holes. Take out a hole and jump in. There’s an element of that in it for me.”

Little Big Town

WERNER TRIESCHMANN — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 17:29:51 GMT

A Place To Land | Equity
Although you may wish that the first single wasn’t about life on the road, even it is soaked in a sweetness that’s too rare these days.

Kenny Chesney

WERNER TRIESCHMANN — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 22:45:04 GMT

Just Who I Am: Poets and Pirates | Sony
Chesney has built his sizeable country empire on selling Jimmy Buffett–like beach fantasies with guitar-fueled mid-tempo frat rock.

Carrie’s gift

WERNER TRIESCHMANN — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 16:12:44 GMT

From American Idol to Music Row
The process was well under way, but YouTube provided a caught-on-camera bright-red underline.

THE RIGHT STUFF: If “Last Name” ever makes it to radio, it’ll be shouted out by sloshed females at bars across the land.

The process was well under way, but YouTube provided a caught-on-camera bright-red underline. The occasion was the 2006 Country Music Association Awards, and when it was announced that Carrie Underwood had won Female Artist of the Year, fellow nominee Faith Hill, then country music’s long-running diva of choice, reacted with an angry “What?!” as she stared right at the camera.

The moment couldn’t have captured the shifting fortunes of the pair any better if Hill had interrupted the CMAs to give Underwood a glittering crown and a key to the city of Nashville. Hill has since said she was joking, but that’s beside the point. Underwood, the 24-year-old former American Idol winner whose second CD, Carnival Ride (Arista), recently shot to the top of the charts, is the new diva of Music Row — which by most lights makes her America’s pop diva. Whereas the country’s other reigning songbirds appear to be concentrating on clothing lines (the exception being Jennifer Lopez, who’s too busy wondering where her audience went), Underwood’s just singing. And the music she’s making is equal to the size of the stage she’s now on.

Plenty of cynicism has been directed at this blonde, beautiful singer — after all, she got her start on a puffed-up talent show. And Nashville, the great sterile music factory, rarely gets any valentines. But since Underwood’s new album sold just over 500,000 copies in its first week, becoming a certified blockbuster in an era where those don’t happen so often anymore, her strategy of blowing air kisses to country music’s faithful looks like a stroke of genius. Just ask fellow Idol winner Kelly Clarkson how trusting in fickle fans has worked out for her.

It’s not as if Carnival Ride were some kind of throwback hardcore trad country album. It’s a breezy country/rock/pop party with ballads that confirm, just in case anybody was wondering, that Underwood is still a voice first. Yes, she helped write four of the 13 songs, but for the most part Carnival Ride follows the long-established formula where an army of Nashville songwriters supply the material and the star shows it off in the best light.

Lori McKenna

WERNER TRIESCHMANN — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 15:54:21 GMT

Unglamorous | Warner Bros.
Lori McKenna had her major-label debut co-produced by Hill’s husband, country superstar Tim McGraw.

Irish sprung

WERNER TRIESCHMANN — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 20:09:20 GMT

Fionn Regan makes his way to America
Irish singer-songwriter Fionn Regan answers straightforward questions with beguiling sidesteps.

INSTANT FILMS: Regan’s songs are “evidence of the journeys I’ve made and the conversations that I have had.”

Irish singer-songwriter Fionn Regan answers straightforward questions with beguiling sidesteps. Take this response to the nature of his home town, the County Wicklow seaside village of Bray. “Yeah, it’s the last stop on the train line, you know,” he explains during our phone conversation, on the eve of an American tour that brings him to the Lizard Lounge this Friday. “You fall asleep on the train, and they have to knock on the window to wake you up.” The 26-year-old Regan describes his birthplace as “strange,” “desolate,” and “frantic” before confessing, “You do feel like you want to break loose from it.”

Breaking loose is just what he’s accomplished over the past year, thanks to his debut, The End of History, which was released on Bella Union in the UK last year and then in the US this summer on the Americana label Lost Highway. By then, the disc had racked up superlatives from the British press and snagged a Mercury Prize nomination.

The End of History is a spare recording — and for all the right reasons. Regan’s quicksilver acoustic guitar frames a high tenor that’s drawn comparisons with cult folk-rocker Nick Drake. It’ll even make you forget how, just yesterday, you vowed to never to fall for another singer-songwriter. Regan paid for the CD out of his “piggy bank,” digging for change in “old coat pockets.” Not that he needed much for a recording that couples the warm glow of his voice with an acoustic guitar. That just sets up the drama when drums kick in on the bouncy “Blackwater Child.”

And his lyrics are poetic in a way that doesn’t make you cringe. The bone-chilling “Snowy Atlas Mountains” is fraught with unspecified tension: “My jumper’s soaked in pig’s blood,” he whispers at one point, and then, “If you pull a hatchet, I’ll pull something to match it.” “Underwood Typewriter,” a rambling ode to love, is as bright and playful as “Snowy Atlas Mountains” is dark and taut.

Regan says that he writes his songs “very fast” — and despite evidence to the contrary, he denies that he favors imagery over narrative. “The songs are documents, like the evidence of the journey I’ve made and the conversations that I’ve had. In a way, they’re instant films.” He’s been likened to Dylan, of course (what literate songwriter who plays acoustic guitar hasn’t?), and to folk icon Woody Guthrie, which seems a better fit. Being called a “folk artist” amuses him. “It’s a neighborhood people want to put you in. People like to build a little house for you. Like everybody there wears top hats or something like that. There’s singer-songwriters I wouldn’t want to go camping with, you know what I mean?”

Putumayo Presents Americana

WERNER TRIESCHMANN — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 15:09:31 GMT

Putumayo
Most of what you’ll find here is about as appealing as the disc’s candy-colored cover, which has got to be in the running for one of the ugliest of the year.

Donovan Frankenreiter

WERNER TRIESCHMANN — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 17:33:57 GMT

Recycled Recipes | Lost Highway
Lost HighwaySurfer-turned-musician Donovan Frankenreiter has a sandy beard, a warm old soul voice, and a sonic signature planted firmly in the 1970s.

Magic Numbers

WERNER TRIESCHMANN — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 18:05:46 GMT

Those the Brokes | Capitol
The Magic Numbers are throwbacks to a time when pop was lighter than air.

Anchored in Love: A Tribute to June Carter Cash

WERNER TRIESCHMANN — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 14:45:07 GMT

Dualtone
Tribute albums are usually hit-or-miss, and this one honoring June Carter Cash is no exception.

Big + Rich

WERNER TRIESCHMANN — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 19:08:12 GMT

Between Raising Hell and Amazing Grace | Warner Bros.
They once seemed capable of much more.

Brad Paisley

WERNER TRIESCHMANN — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 16:20:09 GMT

5th Gear | Broken Bow
Paisley’s winsome 5th Gear is about as light as Miranda Lambert’s Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is dark — in a good way.

Jason Aldean

WERNER TRIESCHMANN — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 14:31:28 GMT

Relentless | Broken Bow
Jason Aldean is a young, earring-wearing hat act who plays the Nashville game the way it’s always been played.

Miranda Lambert

WERNER TRIESCHMANN — Fri, 18 May 2007 13:45:25 GMT

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend | Sony Nashville
Now two albums into her major-label country career, Miranda Lambert has positioned herself as a female outlaw.

Dr. Dog

WERNER TRIESCHMANN — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 20:48:01 GMT

We All Belong | Park the Van
It comes as a warning of sorts: when Dr. Dog miss their mark, they miss it by a mile.

Blaine Larson

WERNER TRIESCHMANN — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 22:31:24 GMT

Rockin' You Tonight | BMG
By the ripe old age of 20, Blaine Larsen had graduated from his Tacoma (Washington) high school and released two full-length country albums.

GARY ALLAN

WERNER TRIESCHMANN — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 02:22:32 GMT

TOUGH ALL OVER | MCA NASHVILLE
Concept albums are rare in mainstream country music, and it’s rarer still to find Nashville product that favors darkness over light.