Jeff McCord on the month’s new releases
Elliott Smith
Kill Rock Stars
Before “Miss Misery” took the Duncanville-raised singer Elliott Smith from indie cult to mainstream pop status, Smith fronted a band called Heatmiser, one of a hundred acts looking to be the next Nirvana. With his fragile voice and persona, Smith made an even more unlikely grunge rocker than Kurt Cobain. Though his band had success, Smith felt constrained and threw himself into a more intimate solo career; from 1994 to 1997, while his band was slowly dissolving, Smith recorded prolifically. He put out two of his own albums, but most of these sessions remained unreleased—until now. New Moon (Kill Rock Stars) presents a wealth of this material, posthumously released, over two CDs. While some of it has the feel of demos or of melodies that couldn’t quite find their way home, the bulk of what’s here is a real delight, particularly for those who prefer the charms of 1997’s Either/Or to the heavy-handed production of his later major-label efforts. Haunting, delicate, and altogether entrancing, Smith’s talents are stripped bare on New Moon, which offers a window into a genius we thought we’d never see again.
Li’l Cap’n Travis
Glurp
The members of Austin’s Li’l Cap’n Travis are an unlikely bunch: With multiple writers and singers in place of a front man and a bevy of backing musicians, this is a real band—and they’ve been that way from the beginning. They aren’t conventional (no hitting the road in a van for months at a time), but they’re not overtly self-conscious either. In fact, they’re in love with music much older than they are: sunny, countrified sixties California pop, which is not exactly high on the hip meter these days. And, unlike a lot of their contemporaries, they like the studio. Though LCT’s 2000 debut exposed the band as a ragged-but-right alt-country outfit, Twilight on Sometimes Island (Glurp), their fourth CD, is a sonically sophisticated wonder. The group took three years to finish the album, and it shows: Vocal harmonies glide, guitars and pianos sing out majestically, pedal steels soar. If underneath all this are some pretty goofy song concepts (witness “Sugar Buzz” or the nah-nahs of the album’s instrumental opener), it hardly matters. Few albums have such instant appeal or staying power (just try to forget “My Ship Is Coming In”). Still fewer are this much fun.
Various Artists
Rhino
This year marks the fortieth anniversary of the fabled Summer of Love, and the four-CD Love Is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965—1970 (Rhino) commemorates the occasion with a thrilling showcase of the Bay Area sounds that defined a generation. These sounds weren’t just Californian, however. “Everybody get together,” coaxed Dino Valenti’s iconic song, and among those to gather in SF were an influential number of Texans: promoter Chet Helms, who founded the famed Avalon Ballroom and persuaded Janis Joplin to lend her talents to Big Brother and the Holding Company; psychedelic bluesman Steve Miller, who derided the early Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane for not being able to play; Miller’s onetime guitarist Boz Scaggs, who played Southern R&B until he heard disco’s call. Then there was that hottest of deejays, Sly Stewart, who was also a producer (of several key tracks here) before going on to lead his multiracial phenomenon Sly and the Family Stone. There are the usual licensing issues for such an endeavor (no Doug Sahm, and Joplin’s tracks are hardly representative), but this exhaustively researched set of the obvious and the obscure is still one hell of a trip.
James Cotton
The blues harmonica giant, who is now 72, reunited with his former boss Muddy Waters in 1977 for the Grammy-winning Hard Again, which was spearheaded and produced by Beaumont’s Johnny Winter. After the success of the album, the three went on the road, but until the tapes that make up the new release Breakin’ It Up & Breakin’ It Down (Epic Legacy) were discovered, there was scant documentation of the historic tour.
You left Muddy’s band in 1966. Why did he reach out to you so many years later?
After all those years with Muddy, he knew I could play his style.
On the tour, having a rock star in a blues band must have made for an interesting audience mix.
Muddy had his audience, Johnny had his, and I had mine. We all blended together.
What’s your fondest memory of these shows?
It was the last recording I ever made with Muddy, and I will always carry that precious memory with me.
Like yourself, another Muddy Waters alum has relocated to Austin, the pianist Pinetop Perkins.
I’ve known Pinetop pretty much all my life. I sure love that man. Pinetop is 94 years old now, and he makes me feel young!
Breakin’ It Up & Breakin’ It Down: James Cotton, published by Epic Legacy.
