Once again a giant album
necessitated my absence from blogging for a few more days than I would have
liked. Given the delay, it seems only right that this entry have Extra Limited
Edition Content this time – and I give you that in the form of a concert review
for the Smalls. Scroll to the bottom if that interests you, and this album
doesn’t.
I admit that despite all this
extra content, I am distracted tonight by my two favourite sports teams in the
world (the Miami Dolphins and the Boston Bruins), who are both playing their
arch-nemeses at this very minute (the hated Buffalo Bills and the equally reviled
Montreal Canadiens). I am taping the football game and as soon as I am done
here, that’s my next stop. I’d tape both, but I’m afraid one will announce the
score of the other while I’m watching.
Anyway, it’s all very nerve
wracking, but I’ll try to stay focused on the music for the time it takes to
fill you in about the next album on the CD Odyssey. And the Smalls, of course.
Disc 677 is…. This One’s For Him: A Tribute To Guy Clark
Artist: Various
Artists
Year of Release: 2011
What’s up with the Cover? Guy Clark with his
wife Susanna. This picture was unexpectedly poignant for me, because in the
process of confirming Susanna’s name I found out that she had died of cancer in
2012, only a year after this compilation came out. Guy and Susanna were married
for forty years. As youthful as they appear in this picture, it is a reminder
that we’ve only got so many days on this earth with the people we love, so
enjoy each and every one of them.
How I Came To Know It: I only came to know this album
very recently. I was listening to some Emmylou Harris tracks on Youtube and her
duet with John Prine of “Magnolia Wind”
came up on the playlist. After a bit of sleuthing I discovered it was off of
“This One’s For Him.” The album’s track list was full of many of my favourite Guy
Clark songs, many sung by artists I really admired. I ordered it on Amazon along
with three of Guy Clark’s originals. Yeah, there’s been a lot of Guy Clark
around the house lately.
How It Stacks Up: This is a compilation of a bunch of cover songs, so
it doesn’t really stack up. As compilations go, it is pretty sweet, though.
Rating: 4 stars
When I rolled this album I was instantly reminded of
Guy Clark’s song “Old Friends,”
partly because a lot of these songs feel like old friends for me, and partly
because I just finished giving the whole album a marathon listen (three
straight times through) right before I randomly rolled it. There isn’t a better
test than that if an album is going to hold up than a whole lot of listens in a
short period of time. “This One’s For Him” performed very well.
“This One’s For Him” was recorded to celebrate Guy
Clark’s 70th birthday, and it is a worthy present for the occasion.
Clark’s music tends to be a lot of countrified musing and moseying, expertly
done in a relaxed and conversational tone that is uniquely his own. Clark
rarely strays from his formula, and so it makes sense that his tribute album is
pretty much entirely done by country artists in a country style.
Often on these compilations I prefer to hear a song
get a very different treatment from the original, but “This One’s For Him”
still works based on the fairly consistent work of the artists involved. There
are a lot of artists involved, too, with thirty songs spread across two albums,
and over two hours of music. Fortunately, this is one double album worthy of
the excess.
Many of the singers were well known favourites for
me (Steve Earle, Lyle Lovett, Kris Kristofferson, Patty Griffin) and others
were complete unknowns (Kevin Welch, Rodney Foster, Jack Ingram) and I enjoyed
both in fairly equal measure.
For the most part if it was a Guy Clark favourite
for me originally, I tended to like the cover as well, but there were some
notable exceptions. Vince Gill singing “The
Randall Knife” just didn’t work at all. Clark’s version is full of the hurt
and heartbreak of losing a father, and Vince Gill’s sounds like a hokey
campfire performance. Patty Griffin, who I usually love, doesn’t really work on
“The Cape” either. Maybe I’ve just
heard Guy Clark singing the hell out of that song too many times.
While Guy Clark is not known as the world’s most
talented singer, he is a master of emotion and phrasing. He is also a damn fine
songwriter, and it is fun to hear his songs done by other artists who can
really belt it out, like Suzy Bogguss on “Instant
Coffee Blues” Rodney Crowell on “That
Old Time Feeling” and the Trishas singing beautiful harmonies on “She Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere.” The
often-underrated Bogguss is particularly brilliant as she sings about an
awkward one-night stand, filling Clark’s lyrical mastery with a woman’s
perspective.
Then again a lot of the other vocalists are just as
limited as Clark himself. Fortunately they picked folks with enough folksy
charm of their own to pull it off. Examples include a rusty-voiced Kris
Kristofferson singing “Hemmingway’s
Whiskey” (and sounding like he’s had too much of it over the years), and John
Townes Van Zandt singing “Let Him Roll.”
A favourite for me is Steve Earle singing “The Last Gunfighter” as he spits out Clark’s
masterful tale of an aging, once dangerous man now lost in a world that has
passed him by. It is Steve Earle we’re talking about, so it is hard to go wrong
even if the lyrics were sub-par, and with Clark they rarely are. “The Last Gunfighter” is some of his best
work.
The album has a lot of favourites, though, and the
pairing of fresh voices with great Guy Clark material is a wonderful thing. If
you are interested in Guy Clark, I’d suggest starting with 1995’s “Dublin Blues”
but once you have his ‘voice’ in your head, “This One’s For Him” will give you
a nice overview of some of his classics, sung by the many musicians that his
talent has touched over the years.
Best tracks (with artists): That Old Time Feeling – Rodney Crowell,
Anyhow I Love You – Lyle Lovett, Homeless – Shawn Camp, Magdalene – Kevin Welch,
Instant Coffee Blues – Suzy Bogguss, Let Him Roll – John Townes Van Zandt, Cold
Dog Soup – James McMurtry, Magnolia Wind – Emmylou Harris & John Prine, The
Last Gunfighter Ballad – Steve Earle, LA Freeway – Radney Foster, She Ain’t
Goin’ Nowhere – The Trishas,
Bonus content – Smalls Review!
Saturday, November 8 at Sugar
On Saturday Sheila and I
went with a bunch of our friends to a reunion concert of the Smalls. I’d only
heard a few of their tracks on Youtube, so all I really knew was they played a
sort of groove metal/grunge hybrid and that their bass player was Corb Lund.
Having seen them live, I now know why fifteen years after they broke up they
still have so many dedicated fans.
The Smalls kicked some
serious ass live. They were tight, energetic and heavy as hell but still
melodic. The show was at Sugar nightclub, which among other lame things 1)
scans your driver’s licence through a machine before letting you in 2) requires
you to check your coat (although I somehow managed to walk by when they weren’t
paying attention) and 3) gives every guy a full frisk/pat down on the way in.
The show itself was like
a time machine, but in an alternate universe where everyone had somehow
remained cool when they got old. The audience was packed with seriously
dedicated Smalls fans, many of them visibly drunk, but still able to sing along
and knowing every song by rote. There were even dudes with full “Smalls”
back-patches on their jean jackets, which is very cool for a lesser-known band.
The dance floor in front
of the stage was crammed with slam-dancing drunks (I was happily up in a
balcony). Watching them flow to the music was soothing – like losing yourself
watching waves during a storm. No fights resulted, but I noticed that in
maneuvering my way in and out of the bathroom everyone was very quick to say
‘sorry’ to each other and show respect – I think it was the knowledge that
everyone around you was seriously jacked on adrenaline and…er…Jack Daniels that
kept everyone hyper polite off the floor.
In short, it was a great
crowd and a great show. I bought all four of their albums from the merch table.
I was only going to get a couple, but as I was trying to pick, nearby hard-core
fans kept pointing emphatically at different albums insisting that was the one
I should get. This went on for a bit, until one extremely loaded dude just
waved his hand vaguely over the lot of them and said – “Fuck! All of them,
dude” – I took his advice, because I sensed in that moment he was my true
spirit guide, and that I could trust him.
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