2009.09.04
CD reviews that won't fit in Saturday's paper
BRANDI SHEARER
“Love Don’t Make You Juliet” (Vinyl Tiger) Most of Brandi Shearer’s fourth album sounds easygoing and seductive. Pristine acoustic guitars, closely recorded with lots of finger squeaks, ride a gentle pulse behind Shearer’s intimate, bluesy alto. Producer Craig Street has done similar work with k. d. lang and Cassandra Wilson, although Shearer is more understated than the former and less jazzy than the latter.
But the cover photo of “Love Don’t Make You Juliet” shows Shearer brandishing taped knuckles, ready to fight, and the album is full of bruised and vengeful love songs. “When you go, I’m going to find you,” Shearer sings on the swampy, banjo-driven “When You Wake Up,” getting ready to demand an explanation from a (former?) lover. Even “How Glad I Am,” the Nancy Wilson standard and lone cover here, sounds obsessive, as if Shearer is enthralled but desperate.
Shearer is trapped between “I Don’t Love You” and “I Just Want You To Love Me.” It’s an uncomfortable but compelling place.
—Steve Klinge, The Philadelphia Inquirer
LOUDON WAINWRIGHT III
“High Wide & Handsome: The Charlie Poole Project” (2nd Story Sound) Charlie Poole, a string-band hitmaker of the 1920s, died at 39 in 1931, giving birth to a legend that has long fascinated folkies and bluegrassers. Loudon Wainwright III celebrates the North Carolina banjoist’s legacy in this two-CD set, and as you’d expect from the sharp-witted Wainwright, it’s no dry, dusty homage.
In acoustic settings ranging from solo to full band, sometimes with horns, Wainwright presents 21 numbers recorded or performed by Poole. They include everything from the driving “The Deal” (“Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down”), with its proto-rock-and-roll attitude, to the touching ballad “The Letter That Never Came” — songs that show Poole’s stylistic and emotional range.
Wainwright, however, sometimes with producer Dick Connette, also delivers eight originals that attempt to present a personal portrait of Poole and his milieu. So you get a project that offers insight into Poole, but is still very much a Wainwright album. The originals include the leadoff title track, which gets at Poole’s charisma and hints at the desperation that drove this itinerant entertainer: “Let’s live it up — might as well we’re all dyin’/ High wide and handsome — let’s put on a show.”
—Nick Cristiano, The Philadelphia Inquirer
TREY SONGZ
“Ready” (Songbook/ Atlantic)
Trey Songz is ‘Ready’ with smooth R&B. After making his name singing the hooks for rappers ranging from LL Cool J and The Game to Young Jeezy and Rick Ross, Trey Songz’s third album, “Ready”, shows his smooth R&B vocals can hold the spotlight all on their own. The single “I Need a Girl” displays a more flexible delivery than usual, somewhere between Usher and Justin Timberlake. That said, it’s still his collabos that will get the most attention, the future smash “Successful” with Drake and the clunky ode to text-love “LOL :-)” with Gucci Mane and Soulja Boy Tell’ Em.
— Glenn Gamboa, Newsday
LAURENCE HOBGOOD “When the Heart Dances” (Naim Jazz) When bassist Charlie Haden comes around, a lot of good things usually happen. So it is here.
Chicago-based pianist Laurence Hobgood leads this largely duet recording with Haden that also includes two Hobgood piano solos and three trio tunes with fellow Chicagoan, singer Kurt Elling.
The duets with Haden are glorious. The first trick they accomplish is to make “Que Sera Sera” into a dark, intriguing affair, not a folksy cartoon. The tunes are studded with rich sonorities. Hobgood proves to be an inventive cat; the positive ions just keep streaming from his head.
And in some ways, the set overdoses on the happy stuff, perhaps because there’s so much of it. Still, it induces a pleasant vibe.
Hobgood has been music director for Elling, and both appear at the Windy City’s fabulous throwback dive, the Green Mill. So their rapport has deep roots. And it’s zesty to have Elling blowing in on Haden’s rapturous “First Song” or making “Stairway to the Stars” into a major-league relaxant.
— Karl Stark, The Philadelphia Inquirer
