Checking in with our thoughts on a few of tonight’s winners from the 2011 Grammy Awards, including the Black Keys — the top-rated Something Else! Reviews record from last year — as well as Buddy Guy, Neil Young, Stanley Clarke, Paul McCartney and Mavis Staples, among others. Click through the album titles for more …
THE BLACK KEYS, BROTHERS (winner for alternative music album; ‘Tighten Up’ from this record also named best rock performance by a duo or group with vocals): Singer/guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney return, in many ways, to their template — the blue-eyed soul (“She’s Long Gone”), the lo-fi atmospherics — but that doesn’t mean these well-known acolytes of the urban mid-century blues cliche have stopped hybridizing black music into modern rock. They’ve just skipped forward a few decades into the 1970s, complete with blaxploitation grooves and ghostly new Curtis Mayfield-esque vocals from Auerbach. It sparks a complete return to form, even while advancing the Black Keys’ core sound. Danger Mouse is back, as well, to oversee a few cuts — including “Tighten Up,” this haunted but unafraid dirge that’s far superior to most anything on their too-smooth 2008 collaboration Attack & Release.
BUDDY GUY, LIVING PROOF (best contemporary blues album): Again produced and co-written with Tom Hambridge, Living Proof is easily the Lettsworth, La., native’s most consistent recording in years, and one that most resembles the liquid-fire aggression of his live performances. Buddy Guy is not disappearing quietly into any good night. In fact, if he ever goes down, it’ll be swinging.
JAMES MOODY, 4B (best jazz instrumental album by an individual or group): Moody sticks with his favored tenor saxophone for all of these songs, and it’s a tenor that doesn’t beg for a change up in woodwinds. Some sax players “sound like” someone else, but in the case of someone whose style crystallized over sixty years ago, it’s a case where everyone else sounds like Moody. Or at least those who play with a preference of having the right notes and the right tone over raining down sheets of sound.
NEIL YOUNG, ‘ANGRY WORLD’ (rock song): Ours is still an angry world, and his song of the same title includes this imitative loop recalling both the hopes and fears that we all carry. There’s not much solace, though: “Some see life as hope eternal; some see life as a business plan,” Young sings. Unable to find answers from without, Young perhaps inevitably turns within — examining his own restless individuality. Young senses a seismic shift overtaking us — “can’t you feel a new wind blowing?” he later sings, “don’t you recognize that sound?” — but is just as certain that lasting change comes not from programs or politicians, but from within.
MAVIS STAPLES, YOU ARE NOT ALONE (best Americana album): There is a newfound muscular glint to this music, a credit to producer Jeff Tweedy, frontman of the Grammy-winning Wilco. His band (save for guitarist Nels Cline) appears throughout, with a notable contribution from Patrick Sansone on keyboards and vibes. They combine with members of Staples’ touring group to create a tougher sound, something resolute and spare. This seemless transition is a credit both to the deft musicianship in the room, and to Staples — who had similar successes on shared projects from Prince to Bob Dylan to Curtis Mayfield, among others. Yet, for a time, Mavis’ career had stalled. Only recently has she experienced a popular resurgence, beginning — half a century after the Staples helped define the black struggle for equality — with her brilliant comeback recording of Civil Rights-themed songs with Ry Cooder in 2007.
CAROLINA CHOCOLAT
E DROPS, GENUINE NEGRO JIG (best traditional folk album): The trio do some beatboxing, play banjos, guitars, autoharp, the fiddle, various bits of old-timey authentica (bones, jugs, kazoo), and can sing their asses off — especially Rhiannon, who has some opera in her past. While the Drops are paying tribute to music from another era, Genuine Negro Jig proves that the band has no intention of becoming the Black String Band Historical Society. A quote from Ms. Giddens says it all: “Tradition is a guide, not a jailer. We play in an older tradition but we are modern musicians.”
PAUL McCARTNEY, ‘HELTER SKELTER’ (best solo rock vocal performance): Part of a resilient live release, Good Evening New York City. McCartney mines deeper into a catalog stuffed with great music, underscoring his easy command of the substantial (a grinding take on “I’ve Got A Feeling,” from 1970’s “Let It Be”), the surprising (“Day Tripper,” Lennon’s flipside of the 1965 single “We Can Work It Out”) and, of course, the silly (“Mrs. Vandebilt,” with its fun “Ho! Hey Ho!” call-and-response chorus from the 1973 Wings smash “Band on the Run”). He has always been each of those things, sometimes all at once. We’re reminded of that again on this unexpectedly relevant new disc.
PINETOP PERKINS AND WILLIE ‘BIG EYES’ SMITH, JOINED AT THE HIP (best traditional blues album): A shared history, this common bond that goes deeper than blood, plays out terrifically on “Grinding Man,” as Perkins, still rolling and tumbling at the upright, takes over from Smith for a rare vocal turn. There’s no denying the power, and the purring sexuality, of the song — part of a long-held blues tradition of tongue-waggingly salacious innuendo surely not lost on Perkins. I guess we’re getting a winking glimpse into how the 97-year-old has kept himself going all these years.
LARRY CARLTON AND TAK MATSUMOTO, TAKE YOUR PICK (best pop instrumental album): Matsumoto brings a heavy rock pedigree to the table as leader of the Nippon rock band the B’z, but his fusion side comes out more for this album and his cultivated style meshes well with Carlton’s. This record reminds me so much of Carlton’s 1995 collaboration with Lee Ritenour, that it could almost be called Larry & Lee, Part 2. Or more accurately, Larry & Tak. In other words, it’s a guitar album that won’t dazzle you with flashy, in-your-face playing, but might satiate your soul with some highly polished fretwork.
THE STANLEY CLARKE BAND (featuring Hiromi), THE STANLEY CLARKE BAND (best contemporary jazz album/instrumental): Real fusion; no smooth jazzin’ here. The playing is virtuosic starting with Clarke, and the compositions are ambitious or fun and occasionally, both. The program is nice and varied. Clarke even hauls out the old talk box for some tracks and makes it sound as funky as it did during the bell-bottom days.
- Angell & Crane, “Himalayan Dial-Up” from ‘Angell & Crane’ (2024): Video Premiere - November 22, 2024
- Michael Attias, “Avrils” from ‘Quartet Music Vol. II- Kardamon Fall’ (2024): Streaming premiere - October 11, 2024
- Bryn Roberts, “Aloft” from ‘Aloft’ (2024): Video Premiere - September 20, 2024
