Tag: country

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Bonnie Whitmore (vocals, bass) is a Denton, TX-born, Austin, TX-based singer/songwriter, who can trace the origins of her musical career to when she started playing in her family’s band, Daddy and the Divas. Shortly after that, a teenaged Whitmore picked up gigs playing in several Dallas-Ft. Worth area bands; however, her first professional band The Brent Mitchell Band lead to studio work with an impressive array of artists including Susan Gibson, Shelley King, Mando Saenz, Justin Townes Earle, Hayes Carll, Colin Gilmore and Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Aaron Lee Tasjan and Sunny Sweeney. As a solo artist, Whitmore’s work is influenced by Tom Petty, Bonnie Raitt, Fleetwood Mac, Roy Orbison and The Replacements while drawing from deeply personal experiences — although her her third and latest album Fuck With Sad Girls, which features a backing band comprised of Scott Davis (guitar), who has worked with Band of Heathens and Hayes Carll; Craig Bagby (drums), who has worked with Sherman Colin Herman; and Jared Hall (keys), who has worked with Velvet Underground and Colin Gilmore, the album thematically focuses on the social and cultural stigmas placed on “imperfect” women.

 

Fuck With Sad Girls‘ latest single is “Fighter,” and the gorgeous song has Whitemore, Davis, Bagby and Hall pairing twinkling keys, accordion, lap steel guitar, gentle pads of percussion and Whitmore’s expressive and plaintive vocals in a song that manages to be psychologically revealing, vulnerable and honest as the song’s narrator admits to living a full, complicated and messy life, a life full of joy, mistakes, regrets, difficult and uneasy decisions and compromises, and throughout the song’s narrator reveals herself to be a resilient, modern woman — the sort of woman you’d likely known and encountered in your own life.

 

 

 

 

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Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: The Devil Makes Three’s Cover of A Ralph Stanley Classic

Now earlier this month, you might remember that I wrote about Redemption and Ruin’s first single, a slowed-down, twangy, Johnny Cash, Sun Records-era-leaning cover of one of my favorite Muddy Waters tunes “Champagne and Reefer” that retained the original’s wicked sense of humor and gleeful debauchery. The album’s second single is a cover of bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley’s classic and oft-covered “I Am The Man Thomas,” and as Bernhard told the folks at Relix, “‘I Am The Man’ is a gruesome tale of the capture and crucifixion of Jesus sung by none other than the late great Ralph Stanley. It may be the most metal Gospel song ever penned by mortal hand. What better song to include on Redemption And Ruin, This tune has it all, the chase the death and the rise from the grave.” The Devil Makes Three cover is a subtly and deceptively straightforward cover that puts a bit of snarl and muscle into it — while with a deeper emphasis on the gruesomeness and cruelty of the cruxifixction and Jesus’ eventual redemption.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstay Charlie Greene Returns with an Aching, Country-Leaning Cover of Ziggy Stardust-era Bowie

Several years have passed since we’ve heard from Charlie Greene but as Greene has told me via email, he’s been pretty busy of late as he’s putting the finishing touches on an album that is tentatively slated for release sometime over the winter, along with some tour dates; but in the meantime, the Atlanta-born and Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter has started a video series he’s titled “Dead Man’s Cattle Call,” in which he an this backing band pay tribute to a recently deceased musician of note with a one-take recording in a Topanga, CA-based grape arbor, then they release an accompanying video. And the latest installment is a slow-burning country music rendition of David Bowie’s “The Prettiest Star,” which pulls out the nostalgic wistfulness and ache at the core of the original.

The recently released music video was shot by the folks at Beard and Glasses VR and to get the full effect of the video, please check it out on Google Chrome or on your smartphone. It’s a trippy and immersive effect to be able to view everything the musicians did while performing the song.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Rollicking and Playful New Video for Reed Turner’s “I Got Love”

With the release of his 2013 full-length debut effort to critical acclaim, Ghosts In The Attic, Austin, TX-based indie folk singer/songwriter Reed Turner exploded on to the national map. As a result of the attention on the album, Turner wound […]

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Although she’s the daughter of Alan Menken, the pianist and musical theater and film composer famously known for composing the scores of several beloved Disney animated films — including Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Pocahontas and others, the New York-based singer/songwriter and JOVM mainstay artist Anna Rose has developed a growing national profile with the release of her self-titled EP, her full-length debut effort Nomad and her sophomore effort, Behold A Pale Horse. Whereas both her self-titled EP and Nomad were mostly acoustic-leaning singer/songwriter efforts with conversational and confessional lyrics, Behold A Pale Horse was a both a change of sonic direction and a bold, brassy announcement of an artist who finally found her most natural and singular voice. But if there’s one thing that holds all three of those efforts together, it’s the fact that all of them reveal that New York-based singer/songwriter and guitarist as a complicated and interesting woman who kicks ass and takes names, who is strong yet vulnerable, seductive yet innocent, wizened through experience and yet youthful.

Slated for release in 2016, Strays In The Cut EP is the long awaited follow-up  to Behold A Pale Horse and the EP reportedly has the New York-based singer/songwriter pushing her musical and songwriting boundaries. As Anna Rose explains in press notes  “I am very much an album artist and a storyteller, so the idea of scaling it all back to the size of an EP was a challenge in itself. It forced me to look at the songs in a different way, the production, everything. These six songs needed to tell the whole story. The limitations I placed on the length made the process so much more imaginative in every other aspect.” “Start A War,” Strays In The Cut‘s first single possesses a somewhat stripped down, country and blues-leaning arrangement that’s roomy enough for Rose’s unhurried and expressive vocals. It’s a slow-burning and spectral ballad full of lingering ghosts of past relationships and lovers, past resentments and a past that routinely finds a way to poke its way through your present at a random moment. But the song does so with a quiet and understanding acceptance a a subtle sense of regret.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

With the release of his 2013 full-length debut effort to critical acclaim, Ghosts In The Attic, Austin, TX-based indie folk singer/songwriter Reed Turner exploded on to the national map. As a result of the attention on the album, Turner wound up sharing stages with an impressive list of acclaimed artists including Gary Clark, Jr., Mark Broussard, Will Hoge and Jessica Lea Mayfield, among many others — and the album wound up on several “Best Of” lists that year.

After a year of solitude marked by health issues, Turner turned his backyard shed into a makeshift workspace and studio, compelled to create rather than wallow. Along with his backing band, Turner and company wrote and recorded material that would wind up comprising his forthcoming Native Tongue EP live to tape on an old Studer A827, much like  how they did during the Sun Records days.

As you’ll hear on Native Tongue‘s first single and EP opening track “I Got Love” possesses a bluesy, shuffling stomp and swing reminiscent of Johnny Cash, Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf   — in particular I think of Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues,” and “Get Rhythm,” Howlin’ Wolf’s “Poor Boy (The London Sessions version),” Muddy Waters’ “Mean Ol’ Frisco Blues,” and Bo Diddley‘s “Who Do You Love” (although George Thorogood‘s version is infinitely better). And much like those songs, it feels as though it could have been recorded around that period, as it possesses the looseness of a band playing at a dirty whiskey bar or an old fashioned honky tonk. But interestingly enough the song balances an old-timey sweetness beneath the stomp and braggadocio; it’s the sort of song you’d can picture couples line dancing, swing dancing or blues dancing late into the night.

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

 

Originally begun as a solo side project from her time with Vivian Girls and All Saints Day, Katy Goodman’s current musical project La Sera has developed a national profile with three critically applauded albums, her self titled debut, Sees the Light and Hour of the Dawn, which were released through Hardly Art Records.  Goodman’s last album, 2014’s Hour of the Dawn was very much a punk-inspired album; however, with the release of “High Notes,” the first single from her forthcoming album, Music For Listening To Music To reveals an artist, who has gone through both personal and artistic transitions. Sonically and structurally, the song reveals that Goodman has returned to an elegant and solid simplicity — it pairs the sort of shimmering guitar chords of The Smiths and the propulsive, old-school chugging rhythm of Johnny Cash (in particular, think of “Folsom Prison Blues,” “Jackson” and countless others) with Goodman’s wistfully ethereal coos. And interestingly enough La Sera has added personnel to flesh out the project’s sound — Goodman’s guitarist, cowriter and husband Todd Wisenbaker, who is probably best known as a member of Listening To Music To‘s producer Ryan Adams‘ backing band.

Of course, “High Notes” makes a vital connection between punk, post-punk and renegade country that countless others have done before while possessing a sneering, real life irony that many of us have faced before — after a breakup, taking the high road not because you actually believe that it’s the best thing but for appearances and because you want to get the last word. It’s probably the most honest and heartfelt sentiment I’ve come across in quite some time.

 

 

 

 
Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Brandi Carlile’s “The Things I Regret” Live at Red Rocks Amphitheater

Ravensdale, WA-born and Seattle, WA-based singer/songwriter Brandi Carlile can trace the origins of her music career to her childhood — when she was 8 she performed Johnny Cash‘s “Tennessee Flat Top Box” with her mother […]

New Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Ruby Boots’ “Wrap Me In A Fever” Channels Neko Case and Others

Singer/songwriter Bex Chilcott, best known in her native Australia under the moniker of Ruby Boots has led quite a life. When she was 16. Chilcott left Perth and worked her way up the desolate Western […]

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Skin & Bones’ Swaggering and Ominous “Bad Feeling”

Comprised of Taylor Borsuk (vocals, guitar, drums) and Peter Blackwelder (violin), the Venice Beach, CA-based duo Skin & Bones first gained attention locally as local buskers performing country and blues tunes on Venice Beach’s renowned […]

Uncategorized by William Ruben Helms

Canadian singer/songwriter Spencer Burton has had quite a journey as a musician – he began his career in hardcore punk but his country-folk solo efforts have gained quite a bit of attention. As he’s mentioned […]

Uncategorized by William Ruben Helms

The primary members of Hiss Golden Messenger, the Durham, NC-based singer/songwriter M.C. Taylor and the Brooklyn-based multi-instrumentalist and recordist Scott Hirsch have been playing music together for almost two decades, and their fifth full-length effort, Lateness […]

Uncategorized by William Ruben Helms

Produced by the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach, who first met her at a pop-up vintage clothing stall when he wanted to buy the 1940s hunting jacket she was wearing, Nikki Lane’s anticipated sophomore effort All or […]

Uncategorized by William Ruben Helms

I caught Carrie Ashley Hill a few months ago when she opened up the night for Communion’s monthly showcase at Rockwood Music Hall. And her set was comprised of material from her was comprised of material from her latest effort, Me […]

Uncategorized by William Ruben Helms

Anna Rose’s recently released sophomore effort, Behold A Pale Horse manages to reflect Menken’s extraordinary growth as an artist, performer and as a person. On the sultry, country blues single, “Los Angeles,” Menken is a confident, commanding […]