Dust Off Those Grooves (Chapter Four)

Some records belong to their time, others transcend it and then some are deliberately out of step with it. 1983's 'Paisley Underground' all star record Rainy Day in an odd way falls into all three of these categories.
A one off album, produced by David Roback, masterminded by Roback along with Susanna Hoffs as a reaction to the more and more plastic music the 80s were producing. Roback and Hoffs called in friends from other bands and recorded this odd, but affecting, album that would originally be released by Torrance, California's Llama Records. It's never been widely available as the original release was limited and suffered from poor sales, it was re-released just a year later in 1984 by Rough Trade but that swiftly went out of print. It fetches pretty steep prices on ebay these days but rumors of a re-release always seem to be in the air.
The album itself is a collection of Robacks and Hoffs favorite songs from the 60s and 70s performed by them along with Kendra Smith (Dream Syndicate, Opal), Three O Clock's Michael Quercio, and Will Glenn from the Rain Parade.
The album's opening track, Bob Dylan's I'll Keep It With Mine, is worth whatever price you can find it for. Featuring one of Susanna Hoff's most arresting vocals to David Roback's lightly strummed guitar with touches of a tambourine and violin, it sounds like a call to some sort of silent revolution that would only exist within these tracks. The song, one of Dylan's most underrated, was originally given to Nico by Dylan in the mid 60s although Judy Collins was the first to release a version. It's been covered many times but Hoffs gives it a definitive reading here and makes it her own.
Side one continues with cover of The Byrds John Riley sung by Quercio and that's followed by Kendra Smith's mesmerizing Neil Young reading Flying On The Ground Is Wrong. Quercio returns with the famous Pet Sounds opener Sloop John B and we find the first side closing with a section of The Who's mini opera A Quick One While He's Away. Roback's great guitar work, which would reach near legendary status later with Mazzy Star, is prominent on nearly every track here and it gives the album a great consistent feel, something rare for a covers album.
Side two opens with Kendra Smith's eerie take on Alex Chilton's already chilling Holocaust. The song made so famous by Big Star on that disturbing third album is given a suitably neurosis filled turn and sets the mood for side two which is considerably darker and noisy than the first. Roback continues the dark tone with Neil Young's On The Way Home before Susanna Hoffs turns in another stunner of a performance, this time with Lou Reed's I'll Be Your Mirror. The song, one of Reed's loveliest, was like the other main Hoffs contribution, given to Nico for inclusion on the first Velvet Underground album. Hoffs, also on rhythm guitar, gives the song one of it's sweetest and most melancholic turns. It's at least the equal to Nico's original legendary take and proves a welcome sigh of relief to the almost oppressive intensity of the side. The album closes with a long take of Jimi Hendrix's Rainy Day, Dream Away. It's a long exhausted sounding jam that is the weakest thing on the album but still sounds like a perfect closing. The final moments are taken up with the sound of rainfall before the needle slides over and the record is over.
Roback would, as previously mentioned, later meet Hope Sandoval and form Mazzy Star. Kendra Smith would continue with the great Opal before releasing a solo album in the mid 90's before unfortunately fading into obscurity. Michael Quercio would record with many bands and is credited with coming up with the term 'Paisley Underground', a joke that somehow caught on. Susanna Hoffs would of course find fame and lose herself with The Bangles. She would resurface in the 90's with a powerful second solo album and recently with another great covers album, this time with Matthew Sweet. She continues to mine her memories for those lost songs of her youth and still injects them with something they didn't have before. Search down this great album and remember a few of your own lost treasures.

Dust Off Those Grooves (Chapter Eight)

It would be interesting to take a poll of music lovers and critics and ask the question, 'What was the high water mark lyrically on an album in the rock era?'
There have been a lot of best of lists but I don't recall ever seeing that and yet what specific album would most music lovers point to as being the lyrically, the greatest? Dylan's Blood On The Tracks, how about Tom Waits Blue Valentine? Paul Simon's first album, what about Lou Reed's New York? Wouldn't want to leave the ladies out, Patti Smith's Horses anyone, Rickie Lee Jones Pirates? Springsteen, Townes Van Zant, don't forget Paul Westerberg. Tough question and I don't have the answer but the first one that comes to my mind and the one I would nominate is Under The Big Black Sun by X.
John Doe and Exene's Cervenka's lyrical masterpiece chronically the struggles of a working-class couple going through loss, a broken marriage, alcoholism and boredom is to my eyes and ears one of the great literary achievements in rock history. As good as any novel and the fact that the words are on top of one of the great rock bands in their prime only sweetens the deal.
Under The Big Black Sun should have been a disappointment, and God knows everyone was expecting one. It was the first major label album by X who had just signed with Elektra from the indie label Slash. Major label debuts are notorious for presenting watered down versions of once great acts. Even a great album like The Replacement's Tim suffers from a bit too much production, and the battle between the indie and corporate idea of what constitutes a great album continues to this day.
X were never a typical band though and with Under The Big Black Sun they delivered their finest work. It's a work that synthesises their harder earlier punk origins with their interest in more classic American traditions like country and folk. Americana 15 years before everyone was throwing that word around, it was called Cow-punk at the time and groups like X and Lone Justice would pioneer the sound that a future generation would reap the benefits of. Much like the country-rock sound Rick Nelson, Michael Nesmith and Graham Parson's would revolutinalize in the late 60s. It was a new spin to something very old.
Under The Big Black Sun would, like their first three albums, be produced by former Doors mastermind Ray Manzarek and I'm not totally sure if he has ever gotten enough credit for these recordings. First of all the idea that a musician so associated with L.A. rock from the sixties producing a young punk band in the eighties was incredible, but Ray managed, like John Cale with The Stooges and Patti Smith, to produce X with just enough control. He never compromised their sound, but he roped it in just enough to allow its inherit subtleties to come out. Ray Manzaerk is an uncredited hero to the 2nd wave American punk movement.
X's third album kicks off with the thunderous The Hungry Wolf, and we are immediately presented with something much more complex than the average rock lyric. Recalling Exene's native American ancestory we are presented with a, 'hungry wolf' running 'endlessly with my mate'. The song, ending with the haunting refrain of 'I Roam' is dedicated to The Santee Sioux Indians and JL 'Funny Papers' Smith.
The album continues chronicling the couple's doomed relationship with Motel Room In My Bed, it's lead character going to sleep, "Soggy and forgetful, hopefully not waking up so fitfully". Exene have John have an incredible way of presenting a concrete situation, like alcoholism, in such a subtle way. The music might be in your face but the words rarely are, these are clearly two authentic poets who happen to be part of one of the great American rock bands.
The single Riding With Mary continues and it's one of X's greatest songs and gives us the first clues that Exene is going through much more than just a disintegrating relationship with John. Her beloved sister had been killed just prior to recording this, she would remember her so tenderly in the film The Unheard Music just a year after this album, and it's that death that is sparking many of Exene's most poignant lines. The song, detailing an adulterous affair, ends with this image, "on the dashboard rides a figurine. A powerless, sweet forgotten thing, so the next time you see a statue of Mary, remember my sister was in a car".
Exene's Come Back To Me follows and is dedicated to her sister Mary. If anyone has ever written a more heartbreaking and real description of a funeral and dealing with death I have never heard it. Lines like, "Flies and relations make an annoying sound" and "I built a shrine for you on the kitchen wall with flowers and Florida souvenirs. You were walking through the house last night, I knew it was you from the space in your steps" are so perfectly rendered and detailed. Notice how they aren't just souvenirs, but Florida souvenirs, and it's not just her steps but the space in between them. Anyone who has ever questioned how good rock lyrics can be should listen to this song.
Typically an album will have a very specific break between side A and B. Different sounds or themes will be approached but here X again shows that they were never typical as Under The Big Black Sun and Because I Do both share an alcoholic haze of confusion and regret. The last lign on side one, "Mary's dead, Good morning Midnight" lends intself perfectly to the opening, "I am a black and white ghost in a black and invisible dress", of side 2.
Throughout the album, even though they are exceptional, the lyrics never over shadow the music. This is, after all, a rock record and it's a great one. Bonebrake and Doe were really coming into their own as a rhythm section. Bonebrake is a huge jazz, and specifically Lionel Hampton, fan and his drumming is uncommonly controlled for a punk group. It is also savage and loud, just tribal enough for Hungry Wolf and tender enough for Please Come Back To Me, exceptional work. Billy Zoom was astonishing in all of his work with X, early Rockabilly was and is his biggest influence and he continually gives the band some of the most incendiary fret work imaginable. He makes it seem effortless also, you never feel like he is pushing it or trying to impress. His riffs are deceptively simple and always powerful.
The album's themes of adultery and loss continue with Blue Spark and the only cover on the album, Dancing With Tears In My Eyes. The Leadbelly quote on the inner sleeve is particularly chilling, ending with a thought that will resonate with any music lover filled with something dark, "that's to show how music can bring you back.....if you ain't too far gone".
The album closes with three of X's most legendary songs. Three songs that would take the band to a spiritual place that few have ventured to. These are that Darkness on The Edge of Town that Springsteen sang of and that Badlands that Malick filmed.
First up is Real Child Of Hell, an exhausting rehearsal was filmed for The Unheard Music, and its idea of possession being the cause of a relationship breaking down is an astonishing one for rock. The real child of hell that the song presents is not only inside John Doe and Exene Cervenka but ultimately the fan wanting Exene's dress and much more. It's an indictment not only of themselves but the people they are confessing to, and if you haven't figured it out by now Under The Big Black Sun is a confession.
The ferocious two minute How I Learned My Lesson is what lyric sheets were made for with lines like, "Absence makes the heart grow fonder, so I never want to see you again", becoming a blur underneath the incredibly fast and frantic music.
The album ends with the finest song John Doe and Exene Cervenka ever wrote, and musically the finest song X ever performed. I don't say that lightly either, The Have Nots is one of the great songs in American music and I would hold it up against anything that Guthrie, Dylan, Springsteen or Reed ever wrote. Our sage ends with the couple separated and they are both at bars, just after work, drinking themselves into a much needed oblivion. It's a sympathetic chronicle and indictment of the American dream gone wrong, The Replacements would later cover similar ground in Here Comes A Regular as well as Th Manic Street Preachers in the astonishing Design For Life. It's a subject many authors and filmmakers have covered but it's not something you see in Rock music a lot. Correlating the life of a rock band with a dead end job with "the game that moves as you play" is one of X's most chilling moments. It's fitting that the original lyric sheet goes on longer than the song with a listing of bars to visit, hide and ultimately fade away completely in.
Under The Big Black Sun was awarded five stars by Rolling Stone and was near the top of nearly every critics poll in 1982. It was a defining moment for X and one which they would never top. They would record one more album with Manzarek, the brilliantly scattered More Fun In The New World. The remainder of their catalogue all suffers from over-production but still feature some of the most sublimely brilliant American music ever recorded. They would never scale the despairing heights of Under The Big Black Sun again but would provide a lovely sequel of sorts in 1987's See How We Are, in which the by now divorced John Doe and Exene Cervenka would lament, "the bars we keep between us".
25 years later Under The Big Black Sun is still relevant, still without peer and I'm pleased to report still available. Rhino had a wonderful re-release of it out, remastered with bonus tracks and in depth notes. Even though that will never sound as good as much worn and loved vinyl copy, I urge anyone who might be reading to get this currently available cd. It might make you re-think those best of lists that are released each year, it might make you remember a lost love or at the very least it will remind you that we all have something inside that needs exorcising.....if we're not too far gone.

Dylan On The Road

Tim Lucas has posted a really interesting personal review of his first Bob Dylan show over at the always great Video Watchblog. I read this with great interest as I will soon be seeing the same tour, and I plan on posting my thoughts on it here afterwards. This will be the third time I have seen Bob and I am extremely excited about it. The first time I saw him was transcendent, while the second was disappointing mostly due to the audience so I am curious to see what this tour will bring.
Opening up is Elvis Costello, who has been transcendent each time I have seen him and I expect nothing less from him later in the week...Zimmerman and MacManus on the same bill, I am expecting my mind to be blown.

Idiot Wind

Since moving back to Kentucky about fifteen years ago one of the main points of frustration has been the lack of good concerts we get here. Inevitably I have to drive to either Nashville or Cincinnati to see a good show. Louisville does get some quality shows but they are pretty few and far between, and the gap seems to be widening. It has always struck me as odd since there are so many incredible venues, ranging from small sized clubs to larger arenas. Last night I was reminded as to why quality entertainment is becoming rarer and rarer around here, and it isn't the fault of the artists, the promoters or teh venue managers.
Here is a link to an article in yesterday's Louisville Courier Journal, written by their local music columnist. It is essentially a reminder as to the importance of both Bob Dylan and Elvis Costello. Why on earth is the local music columnist having to write this? Well, because it seems the people of the community just aren't buying tickets to see it, even though they are very reasonably priced.
So my tickets for tonight's show will probably be a lot better, because they have actually had to move the stage and remove the close to 10,000 seats they did not sell. That is a huge and depressing number, and frankly I just don't understand. It is the same feeling I got back in the early nineties when I witnessed Maureen Tucker and Sterling Morrison playing a gig in Louisville to about a dozen people.
It makes me angry at the community and a bit ashamed but it clears up why Kentucky doesn't get more quality artists. I suppose I will continue having to make the commute to either Nashville or Cincinnati, save for the what will probably become even rarer quality Louisville show.
I'm extremely excited for tonight's show but it bothers me that more people around here aren't. Bob Dylan and Elvis Costello have been two artists who have gone out of their way to not ignore Kentucky in the past, I'm not sure if that will continue after tonight's show.

Entering Their House Justified

Despite the fact that Louisville's Freedom Hall is not a good place to see a concert, last nights show with Elvis Costello and Bob Dylan was for the most part pretty spectacular.
The arena, with its uncomfortable makeshift chairs facing away from the stage, never got above half full last night even though the building was housing a show with two of the most legendary and important figures in popular music. The show began promptly at seven o'clock with Amos Lee performing a spirited opening half hour set. Lee, and his solid band, tried out a couple of new songs among some older ones and the audience that was there gave him a decent welcoming.
The night really began though when the lights dimmed and a defiant looking Elvis Costello walked out on stage and burst into a roaring THE ANGELS WANNA WEAR MY RED SHOES. The early part of Costello's set was marred by people taking their seats late, a problem I have noticed becoming more and more apparent with each show I attend. It just seemed to fuel Costello's fire as the great man put on a spitting, angry and politically charged set which also included a couple of new songs.

Highlights of Costello's solo set included a stunning rendition of BLOOD AND CHOCOLATE'S searing UNCOMPLICATED and a surprising performance of GET HAPPY'S NEW AMSTERDAM (with a little of The Beatles YOU'VE GOT TO HIDE YOUR LOVE AWAY thrown in for good measure). Costello chatter in between songs shows a man clearly infused with lot of rage at the war in Iraq and the country's political situation in general. He mentioned his renewed political passion had come with the arrival of his new children, who were backstage with wife Diana Krall, and bragged that as they were American born they could one day become President and Vice President.
Costello is frankly astonishing live and his vocal power and sharp guitar work clearly floored many in the audience. Probably the night's most moving moment came on the more recent EITHER SIDE OF THE SAME TOWN, which seemed to send a trickle of chills throughout the entire room. Costello ended his stand with his COLD MOUNTAIN contribution SCARLET TIDE, and the song's clear anti-war message rang through with Elvis' impassioned performance. A well deserved standing ovation was given as the great man stomped off the stage.
Not many people could follow someone like Elvis Costello, but Bob Dylan is certainly one of them. Taking the stage just past eight thirty, Dylan (dressed in black and frankly looking more bad ass than he has in years) came on stage with his band and without a word of introduction sprang into a sloppy and rollicking LEOPARD-SKIN PILL-BOX HAT. The, maybe about Edie Sedgwick, song from BLONDE ON BLONDE was the perfect opening for the gloriously fiery set Dylan was about to deliver and it merged perfectly into a spirited DON'T THINK TWICE IT'S ALL RIGHT. Dylan, swinging an electric ax, sounded vocally rougher than usual at first but he improved as the impassioned performance went on.
After WATCHING THE RIVER FLOW, Dylan left stage front and moved back to his keyboards and delivered one of the highlights of the evening, a menacing and slightly extended LOVE SICK. His band was really smoking on this track and throughout the night they were really extraordinary, with special note going to the fret work of Denny Freeman and the stomping percussive stylings of George Recile. LOVE SICK gave way to a fun rendition of ROLLING AND TUMBLIN', a song that the band clearly love playing. A double shot of SPIRIT ON THE WATER and HIGH WATER followed before one of the evening's major highlights, a moving take of MODERN TIMES'S WORKINGMAN'S BLUES #2.
Dylan's heartfelt performance of WORKINGMAN'S BLUES was chilling and put tears in my eyes, with the final lines "Some people never worked a day in their life,
Don't know what work even means" hitting like an little emotional bulldozer to the already captivated audience. Even better was the follow up, a brutal and long version of THINGS HAVE CHANGED. Recile's drumming was particularly effective on this song and the band just smoked on Dylan's terrifying lament (and tribute) on not caring anymore. The evening's most pulverising moment came after with a gut wrenching reading of THE LONESOME DEATH OF HATTIE CARROLL. It's hard to imagine anyone injecting more feeling into a song than Dylan did last night when he seemed to put it all on the line with:
"Hattie Carroll was a maid of the kitchen.
She was fifty-one years old and gave birth to ten children
Who carried the dishes and took out the garbage
And never sat once at the head of the table
And didn't even talk to the people at the table
Who just cleaned up all the food from the table
And emptied the ashtrays on a whole other level,
Got killed by a blow, lay slain by a cane
That sailed through the air and came down through the room,
Doomed and determined to destroy all the gentle."
The effect was pulverising and its a moment I'll not soon forget...

Something special had to follow up HATTIE CARROLL and Dylan didn't disappoint as the opening chords of HIGHWAY 61 REVISITED started rippling through the room. Dylan's frantic take was astounding, and he still manages to make the song sound as fresh and invigorating as the original. The eerie AIN'T TALKIN' followed which quickly gave way to the awesome SUMMER DAYS, which again showed the band as a totally together unit. The set ended with a strangely mumbled but incredibly effective version of the searing MASTER'S OF WAR. This performance, added on with Costello's opening, made this one of the most overtly angry and political shows I have seen in a long time.
As MASTER'S OF WAR came to a close, Dylan and his band silently left the stage to another full standing ovation. After a few minutes the band returned for a short but powerful encore of THUNDER ON THE MOUNTAIN and a slowed down, slightly menacing take of LIKE A ROLLING STONE. The band and Dylan then grouped together at the front of the stage and after a few waves exited and never re-appeared.
This was my third Dylan show and it was one of the best. He looked fantastic and seemed like he was in good physical shape. Whether it was Costello opening that fired him up so much, or something else, I don't know, but Bob Dylan seemed about half his age last night and could have blown almost anyone off the stage. His band was great and, despite a small crowd and bad venue, this was one of the best shows I have seen in a while. I would have loved to have seen Dylan and Costello play together but since I didn't expect it, I wasn't disappointed. Frankly just having the two of them in the same building was enough to make the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

Throughout last night's show, many thoughts of Dylan's career ran through my head. One that I kept returning to was his character Alias in Peckinpah's PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID. Why that mysterious character kept popping into my head last night I don't know, but as the small and slightly hunched over man walked off the stage I thought of a moment in Peckinpah's masterful film. That moment when James Coburn's Garrett sadly tells Kris Kristoferson's Billy, "It feels like times have changed." to which Billy responds with a pointed and defiant, "Times maybe...but not me."

An Iron Cross Still Hanging Down From Around Her Neck: 20 Essential Bob Dylan Albums

There are certain artists that I really listen to in major spurts. Artists that I might go for up to a few months without listening to, but just the mention of a song or a dream of a line can send me on a major obsessive frenzy. One of those artists for me is definitely Bob Dylan and lately I have been devouring his back catalogue again. Kim Morgan recently posted a really nice Led Zeppelin list of sorts over at Sunset Gun and that, combined with my current Dylan fixation, has compelled me to present a list of my 20 favorite Dylan albums, as well as the track on each that really speaks to me. Now, from the list below you will definitely be able to tell that I have a particular period that fascinates me more than the others, and you will also notice that I am only working with the studio albums here…no compilations or live collections, as frankly the sheer weight of those would just overload the list. So enjoy, and if you are a fellow Dylan enthusiast please share your thoughts with me, as a talk on Mr. Zimmerman is always a valuable one.



1. John Wesley Harding: Key Track (As I Went Out One Morning)

2. Street Legal: Key Track (Senor: Tales of Yankee Power)

3. Desire: Key Track (Sara)

4. Blood on the Tracks: Key Track (Idiot Wind)

5. Highway 61 Revisited: Key Track (Ballad of a Thin Man)

6. Love and Theft: Key Track (Honest With Me)

7. Bringing it All Back Home: Key Track (It’s Alright Ma, I’m Only Bleeding)

8. New Morning: Key Track (Went to See The Gypsy)

9. Blonde on Blonde: Key Track (Stuck Inside of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again)

10. Slow Train Coming: Key Track (Precious Angel)

11. Planet Waves: Key Track (Going, Going, Gone)

12. Oh Mercy: Key Track (Political World)

13. Another Side of Bob Dylan: Key Track (My Back Pages)

14. Modern Times: Key Track (Workingman’s Blues #2)

15. The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan: Key Track (Masters of War)

16. Self Portrait: Key Track (Paul Simon’s The Boxer)

17. Nashville Skyline: Key Track (I Threw it all Away)

18. The Times They Are a-Changin’: Key Track (The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll)

19. Time out of Mind: Key Track (Not Dark Yet)

20. Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid: Key Track (Main Title Theme: Billy)

Death is Not the End: Karen Elson's The Ghost Who Walks

A dazzling musical collision between The Bad Seeds, Marlene Dietrich and Hank Williams, Karen Elson's wonderfully hypnotic The Ghost Who Walks is one of the first truly great albums of this very young decade. Far from being a vanity project from a beautiful model, Elson's album is a truly bewitching and absolutely compelling work that shows her as an artist of massive talent who should have a very long career in music ahead of her.
Born in the early part of 1979 in Oldham, England, the striking red-headed Elson began her career as a model, while she was a teenager, and immediately became a favorite of many top designers ranging from Marc Jacobs to Jean-Paul Gaultier. As far from the stereotypical air-headed super-model as possible, Elson has been dabbling in music, film and art since she first began to really make a name for herself in the early parts of the last decade.
A gifted vocalist and songwriter, Elson really began paving her way in the muisc industry with her acclaimed time in the ambitious New York Cabaret troupe The Citizens Band. Wowing audiences and critics with her delicious vocal renditions of songs from the catalogues of everyone from The Velvet Underground to Elvis Presley, Elson caught the attention of artists like Robert Plant and Cat Power (both of whom she lent her unforgettable vocal chops to).



While her skills as a great song interrupter weren't in question, few knew just how solid a songwriter Elson was becoming during this time. Not even husband Jack White, who Elson met when she appeared in The White Stripes stunning Floria Sigismondi "Blue Orchid" video, until he heard her one day singing one of her songs in private in their Nashville home. Urged on by his excitement at her material, Elson took the major step of preparing an album and, with White and several other top musicians on board, The Ghost Who Walks began to come together last year.
Taking a cue from nickname she had in her school days, Elson's The Ghost Who Walks is a really wonderful debut work that features beautifully inventive (and yet wisely understated) production from White, a dozen beautifully designed songs, a top of the line band and Elson firing on all cylinders as creative leader. The Ghost Who Walks is one of the first albums of this decade (along with The Sleigh Bells debut) that feels like it has a legitimate shot at becoming a classic. Its freewheeling spirit is absolutely refreshing among the deliberately plastic and robotic pop that is currently controlling the summer's releases.

While the album is remarkably consistent as a whole there are some definite highlights, including the stunning opening set of songs that recall the Murder Ballads of Cave and Cash, as well as the poetic collaborations between Exene Cervenka and Lydia Lunch. The album's title track and first single, "The Ghost Who Walks" opens with a bit that sounds like Donald Rubinstein's Martin score before coming out blazing with Dean Fertita's commanding guitar and organ work and Elson's beautiful vocal that is both seductive and menacing. Equally as powerful are the follow-up tracks, the bruising "The Truth is in the Ground" and the swampy "Pretty Babies". Elson is a commanding lead throughout but White never lets the band get lost in the mix, especially Carl Broemel whose gorgeous sounding pedal steel guitar is present on over half the album's tracks.

While the album has a definite country and rockabilly sound throughout, a couple of the most remarkable tracks show the influence of German composer Kurt Weill and obvious Elson influence Marlene Dietrich, such as "A Hundred Years From Now" which would have been right at home in a Von Sternberg film as re-imagined by David Lynch. The Velvet Underground and Nico's influence can also be felt, but what is more remarkable than the wide variety of influences on the album is Elson's ability to mix them up and make them her own. The Ghost Who Walks is the kind of truly great Americana record that only someone from outside the country could deliver.



Elson's debut only slightly slips on a couple of tracks that are more straightforward country than anything else, such as "Lunasa" and "The Last Laugh". They are far from bad songs though, they just feel slightly limp when placed beside such powerfully strange and adventurous songs like "The Birds They Circle" and the powerhouse closer, "Mouths to Feed." Elson offers a quote by Anais Nin in The Ghost Who Walks' liner notes and, like Nin's best works, Karen's debut is a wildly seductive and original vision from a clearly talented artist. I really can't wait to hear and see what she comes up with next.

Dust Off Those Grooves (Chapter Seven)

It seems like every great artist has at least one album in their catalogue that is universally ignored due to the greatness of the album that proceeded it. How often is The Stones' Goat Heads Soup mentioned in the shadow of Exile On Main St. or how about the third Oasis platter Be Here Now after What's The Story Morning Glory? All the great ones from The Beatles and The Beach Boys up to The White Stripes and Radiohead have made great works that have suffered simply due to comparison.
January and February of 1969 is a month that occupies a special place in rock history, specifically 6 days in January and 5 days in February. These 11 days would mark the legendary Elvis Presley American Studio sessions in Memphis, Tennessee. Much has been written about these sessions, Elvis Costello would label the performances supernatural and I'm not sure a better word could have been chosen to describe them.
The American sessions are the sound of an artist at not only his absolute peak but reaching past it. Elvis in that studio is Picasso in his Blue Period and Hemingway writing Old Man And The Sea. This is the sound of a man coming out of a self imposed shell and re-discovering magic, a man getting his soul back against all obstacles.
There has never been a voice as pure as Elvis' during these sessions. Rumor has it that he had a cold early on when in one night he layed down Long Black Limousine, This is The Story and Wearin That Loved On Look. Listening to these songs you can hear the sound of a man shaking off the shackles of a long imprisonment, the voice that Dylan said would break you out of your own prison. No-one has ever been as good as Elvis in these hours of recording.
To many rock and music historians the only album that came out of these sessions was From Elvis in Memphis. It's the album that typically pops up on the great all time albums lists and it is the lp that is remembered. It is often overlooked that there was a second album, a work that has long since almost vanished into obscurity even though it features some of the greatest performances of Elvis Presley's career.
Back In Memphis, with it's dark live photo of Elvis looking like a ghost coming back for war, was originally issued as part of a set called From Vegas To Memphis. One record recorded live in Vegas while the studio sessions lay nearly hidden in the back sleeve. History has placed these ten tracks as near outtakes to the great From Elvis In Memphis sides but a closer inspection not only reveals ten great tracks but one of the most cohesive records Elvis ever delivered.
The opening, Eddie Rabbit penned, track Inherit The Wind sets the tone. Like other albums I have focused on in this series, from Watertown to Houston, we are dealing with a man in isolation. Backed by the incredible American studio house band, including the great Reggie Young on guitar, Elvis is in top from here. The backing female vocals give the song a strange feel that is complimented by the string section that producer Chips Moman would add on later. The song's odd time signatures coupled with Moman's production gives the song a perfect swaying feel that is punctuated by Elvis' reminder of what it's like to indeed Inherit the Wind.
This is The Story follows, and this as mentioned dates from that first historic night Elvis stepped into American studios. The tragic tone is set here for the album, and when Elvis sings 'but the words that I'm reading could apply to myself' we realise why he didn't have to be a songwriter, once he sang a song it was his, they were his autobiography.
Percy Mayfield's startling Stranger In My Own Hometown follows. This is the most rocking track on the album and the most haunting. This is the sound of a man confronting a city that had witnessed the assignation of Martin Luther King less than a year earlier. Elvis' sorrow at this event has been recounted by both Celeste Yarnall and Jerry Schilling, perhaps more than If I Can Dream this is his reaction to it. It's an explosive, surging performance that stands with his greatest work. The song's ferocious climax features one of the strangest horn arrangements ever put on vinyl and Elvis screaming off mike 'Blow your brains out.' He would revisit this song later in his career and re-invent the idea of a blues man in a frightening laid back chronicle of alienation and despair. Anyone who doesn't understand the genius of Elvis Presley should listen to this song.
Just a Little Bit Of Green and Elvis' lovely reading of Neil Diamond's great And The Grass Won't Pay No Mind are sublime examples of sixties pop at his best. More importantly the album never loses it's chronicling of a man who has denied love. Every track leads up to the album's final upcoming declaration making this, even more than I'm 10,000 Years Old, the great Elvis concept album.
Bobby Russell's dark and brooding Do You Know I Am with it's near whispered vocal and far-away tambourine is the calm at the center of the storm. The regret and longing are starting to kick in and it's the perfect opener for a side that's yearning for forgiveness.
Ned Miller's From A Jack To A King was one of Elvis' fathers Vernons favorites. The most playful and country sounding song on the album still fits in perfectly with the idea of lost love and Elvis delivers a slyly comical rendition that provide a brief respite from the darkness that would follow.
The Fair's Moving On would provide the album with some of it's most haunting imagery, with it's portraits of a packing and vanishing carnival and love affair. Bobby Wood's piano playing is particularly impressive as is Moman's kaleidoscope production that surrounds Presley's soulful vocal.
Back in Memphis concludes with two of Elvis' most impressive and greatest performances. Mort Shuman's You'll Think Of Me opens with Reggie Young on Sitar instead of guitar and it's that instrument that takes the lead throughout the song, providing an exotic counterpoint to the perhaps the most soulful vocal performance Elvis ever gave. The song was used as the b-side to the legendary Suspicious Minds and had remained all but hidden in the years since it's release. It is perhaps the great lost jewel in Elvis' crown, listening to it now it's hard to imagine a singer more in tune with all that a song can symbolically give. No-one, not even Sinatra at his most impassioned, has melded together with a song like this one. This song is Elvis Presley.
The album closes with Danny Small's Without Love, and we find our narrator (and I would say Elvis himself) realizing that 'without love, I am nothing at all'. With Bobby Wood again on piano, we find Elvis at his rawest. Paul Westerberg would later write, 'Remember me, I used to wear my heart on my sleeve', and he could have easily been describing Elvis singing this song. Recorded on the final night of the January sessions, and shortly before Suspicious Minds, it gives the album an uncommonly powerful conclusion. We are still with the same person from Inherit The Wind but we have witnessed him changing and ultimately growing. Of all of the concept albums that have gained fame, perhaps only The Pretty Things S.F. Sorrow came to such a resonate and deceptively simple conclusion.

Back In Memphis is out of print in the United States. You can find the songs on Suspicious Minds: The Memphis Anthology or The Sixties Masters box set. Without a doubt the best way to hear the songs is the 24 bit Japanese remaster that comes in a beautiful cardboard lp sleeve reproduction. The sound quality on this release is mindblowing and gives us some of the most spacious and warm sound on any Elvis release.

Elvis Presley would continue his hot streak and record an equally impressive number of sides a year later in Nashville. These sessions, known now as The Nashville Marathon, would produce two masterpieces, That's The Way It Is and I'm About Ten Thousand Years Old. Studio work would be sporadic after that and the last few sessions would find him producing some of his best and worst work, but they all came from his heart. Elvis said in 1969 that he would never record anything he didn't believe in again, and he never did.

Rick Nelson: Rocks Past and Future Prince

Despite selling millions of albums and being well known all over the world, I don't think music lovers in general realize just how good and important the late Eric Hilliard Nelson was.
Many thoughts go through my head when I think of Ricky Nelson these days. I often remember hearing his music for the first time when I was in growing up courtesy of my father's record collection. I had never before, or since, heard a rock voice so brilliantly subtle and relaxed. I remember staring at the covers of those albums at this impossibly beautiful young man, and feeling like I was looking at someone very real. The honesty reflected in the eyes on any photograph of Rick is inherent in his music. As much as his unaffected vocals or scorching James Burton guitar licks, the records of Ricky Nelson are all the products of a very sincere and very serious dreamer.
Ricky was of course known to millions of people before he could have even fully grasped what fame was. First on the legendary OZZIE AND HARRIET radio show as the scene stealing precocious 'Little Ricky' and then later on the even more famous and influential television show. America grew to know and love Ricky Nelson perhaps before he even had a chance to really know who Ricky Nelson was.
The story of how he got into music is often repeated. Like every other teenager in 1956 Ricky was entranced by Elvis Presley and the freedom his records offered. Always the consummate searcher Ricky discovered Elvis' legendary Sun sides, which in turn led him to the searing rockabilly of Carl Perkins. In Elvis and Perkins he found a sanctuary from the fame and the 'Little Ricky' that everyone in the country thought they knew.
I think about the 16 year old Ricky sitting in his bedroom, like a million other teenagers, listening to those astonishing Sun and early RCA sides over and over again. Only Ricky already had the fame that most teenagers dreamed of, for Ricky the thing he must have wanted was the authenticity of those recordings.
So the story goes that Ricky was rejected by a girl who was obsessed by Elvis, and in a moment of rare bravado he said he was going to cut a record. A quick little thought out ploy to get a girl would soon turn into one of the most important careers in rock history.

The moment that Ricky Nelson comes on the screen at the end of the OZZIE AND HARRIET episode RICKY THE DRUMMER and sings Fats Dominoes I'M WALKIN is one of the great and seminal moments in rock history. Ricky looks nervous and self conscious but there is already something in his eye and voice, that authenticity that he so longed for seemed somehow inherent in him. Ricky Nelson singing I'M WALKIN that fateful evening brought rock and roll into a uncountable number of households that would have never let it in otherwise.
The key to Ricky's entire career is rebellion. Long mistaken for being a safe performer, we can see now that Nelson almost immediately went against Ozzie's musical tastes to form his own very distinct sound. Key to this was the band that he put together shortly after the I'M WALKING single. Headed by a teenage guitar player named James Burton, Ricky and his band cut a prolific and astonishingly great number of singles and albums in the next few years that would, for a period, outsell even Elvis.
With tracks like POOR LITTLE FOOL, STOOD UP and especially BELIEVE WHAT YOU SAY the team of Ricky Nelson and James Burton was an unstoppable force. Burton's shimmering and always inventive guitar work matched with Ricky's unmatchable laid back vocal style will still send chills up even the most jaded music fans necks. The albums during this period are also incredible in that even the lesser more dated tracks still stand out due to this pair's inventive and exhaustive work. Add on the uncredited Jordanaires and you have some of the greatest records of the rock era.
BELIEVE WHAT YOU SAY especially sounds like a revolution all on its own, with Burton's amazing solo laying a virtual blueprint for thousands of players to follow.
Ricky Nelson always seems to be a man haunted by some inner fear that he wasn't as authentic as he wanted to be. He wasn't black, he wasn't poor, he wasn't from the South. All of these things seemingly against him only added to a hard work ethic that would run through him till the day he died.
One story that I love, and that I think says a lot about Rick was the first time he met Elvis. He had been invited to a party Elvis was at and spent most of the night alone in a corner, terrified of meeting his idol. When Elvis found out that Rick was at the party he searched him down and immediately started quoting OZZIE AND HARRIET lines to show that he never missed an episode. Rick was said to be almost moved to tears, and he quickly became close to Elvis and the two would play football together throughout the sixties while Elvis was in Hollywood.
After cutting the incredibly moving TRAVELLIN MAN and playing opposite Dean Martin in RIO BRAVO Rick's career hit a down point. With the arrival of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and the rest of the British Invasion, Rick's records suddenly began to sound a little too safe and quaint. Ironically, and probably unknown to Rick, he had been one of McCartney and Lennon's biggest influences. McCartney still rhapsodizes about him when the occasion arrives and often covers his haunting LONESOME TOWN.
Throughout the mid sixties Rick tried a lot of things, all with mixed results. A failed film with his wife called LOVE AND KISSES, a tv musical with Burt Bacharach and a somewhat psychedelic album called PERSPECTIVE. Everything seemed to fall slightly short, and then even the long running OZZIE AND HARRIET ran out of steam and was cancelled. The world was changing and it seemed like 'Little Ricky' would fade quietly from view.
The origins of the genre known as country rock have always been a bit confused. Many people seem to put ground zero at The Byrd's incredible SWEETHEARTS OF THE RODEO, but often overlooked is a little selling album from 1966 by Ricky entitled BRIGHT LIGHTS COUNTRY MUSIC.
Ricky Nelson's sudden jump into country music surprised the few people who noticed but it shouldn't have. He was that same teenage boy who had always dreamed of that Southern authenticity he had heard in those Sun sides.


In 1968 Ricky would do a total makeover, no longer called Ricky the new Rick would re-surface with long hair and the the incredible LIVE AT THE TROUBADOUR album, and a powerful single of Bob Dylan's SHE BELONGS TO ME.
The period of 68-73 is my favorite in Rick's career. Along with The Stone Canyon Band he would cut a series of incredible folk-rock albums mixing his own compositions with his current favorites (by the likes of Dylan, Tim Hardin, The Stones and more). The albums RICK SINGS NELSON, RUDY THE FIFTH, GARDEN PARTY and WINDFALL are among the finest in the country rock genre and would influence everyone from Linda Ronstadt to The Eagles. Rick's work in this period stands along with Graham Parson's as one of the purest ever meetings between rock and country.
RUDY THE FIFTH in particular is probably, along with the TROUBADOUR album, the greatest unknown record in Rick's canon. With strong songwriting, including a chillingly prophetic GYPSY PILOT that ends the album with the sound of a plane crash, to some of the best Bob Dylan covers ever, RUDY THE FIFTH is a bold work by Rick at his most confident.

After the famed GARDEN PARTY, perhaps Rick's finest and most well known triumpth, personal and career worries began to take hold. Rick toured constantly for the next few years trying to push his incredible new music onto audiences that were often puzzingly unreceptive.
The death of Elvis Presley in August of 77 shook Rick and reminded him of the music of his youth. After the disappointing failure of the overly slick INTAKES album, as well as the unreleased BACK IN VIENNA unreleased LP, Rick would spend much of 78 devising a record that would combine the early James Burton fueled rockabilly sides of his youth with his more grown up flavored folk rock.
ROCKABILLY RENAISSANCE is one of the great unreleased records in rock history, Rick's winter of 78 masterpiece would foreshadow the emergence of an entirely new genre called cow-punk. You can hear the birth of bands like X, Lone Justice and The Stray Cats in these remarkable sides from that incredibly bitter winter after Elvis had died. Appearing on Saturday Night Live to promote the upcoming album, Rick delivered a haunting DREAM LOVER that should have become a huge hit. What happens next has still never been fully explained.
His record company made the odd decision to hold back the release of DREAM LOVER by several weeks killing the strong SNL word of mouth. Even more damaging then was the news that the company was going to shelve ROCKABILLY RENAISSANCE after Rick refused to make it more commercial. Released in its place was a four track ep that only scratched at the surface of its greatness. The album was finally released in a glossy over produced version entitled THE MEMPHIS SESSIONS after Rick died. It remains the biggest missed opportunity in Rick Nelson's career.

More and more exhausting touring followed, and the beginnings of a messy divorce, until the release of the underrated PLAYING TO WIN album in 1981. This album would show Rick still at the top of his songwriting and performing game but no one seemed to notice.
The final few years of Rick's life have him touring at an impossible rate in order to pay off his mounting legal bills and take care of his sons. Disheartening and re-assuring was having an album back in the charts by 84 ALL MY BEST, which featured re-recordings of some of his biggest hits.
The final days of Rick Nelson are often looked upon as tragic, with him touring in one of those sad oldies package shows. But he still delivered performances every night that were worthy of his fine legacy.
Shortly before his death Rick participated in the MEMPHIS CLASS OF 55 record which reunited Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins back at Sun studios. At one point Carl Perkins came up to Rick and wrapped his arm around him and told him that they were two of the last 'originals' left. Rick would often recount this story to his sons, and it can be looked upon as the moment where "little Ricky" finally realized that he had possessed that authenticity, that he had so yearned for, all along.
Rick Nelson was killed on December 31st, 1985 in a plane crash along with the members of his band and some friends. The media quickly reported that it was drug related, although this was later proven unfounded and a complete falsehood.
Rick's music and life continues to captivate people all over the world, and a recent best of collection surprised everyone by jumping into the top forty in it's first week of sales. I still remember holding my father's albums and hearing Rick's amazing voice for the first time, and each time I play his music that same sincerity still shines through.
Bob Dylan would began to perform LONESOME TOWN in concert after Rick died. He would also write of how much he loved Rick's voice in his CHRONICLES book. Typically he would introduce LONESOME TOWN by saying that Rick had covered many of his songs so he wanted to pay him back and then add, "I had a lot of respect for that guy". It is a respect that I believe will continue to grow as Rick's music becomes more and more available again.

Essential to newcomers is the four cd box set LEGACY that covers Rick's entire career. All of his early albums with James Burton are essential for any serious rock fan and LIVE AT THE TROUBADOUR and RUDY THE FIFTH are still astonishing, although much harder to find.
To go along with the respect that Dylan mentioned, I would just like to add...that I really admire and love this guy. Seek out some of his music if you don't have any in your collection, you might be surprised by how great and transcendent it is.

Thirty Years On

“When I first heard Elvis' voice I just knew that I wasn’t going to work for anybody; and nobody was going to be my boss...Hearing him for the first time was like busting out of jail.”
-Bob Dylan-

Dylan's Mysterious Gypsy

Damn, I think this is my first Bob Dylan post. Seems impossible, as rarely a day goes by when one of Mr. Zimmerman's songs isn't in my stereo or at least my head, but I do believe this short one will be my first.
I think one of Dylan's lasting legacies will be the overwhelming number of lost treasures buried within the grooves of his albums. This guy's catalogue is DEEP and even after years of listening to him I still find myself regularly stumbling onto a track buried between a couple of recognized masterpieces that totally blows my mind.
One such track is WENT TO SEE THE GYPSY from 1970's underrated NEW MORNING. The song, which chronicles the imaginary (or is it?) meeting with Elvis Presley is a real jewel. Who else but Dylan could write such a disarmingly simple song about meeting your idol, and then realizing that perhaps it was best to keep him at a distance? I find the final lines of this song, where Dylan speaks of watching the sun rising in a little Minnesota town, to be some of the most personal and pure in his catalogue.
It is a great little track and I am amazed that more haven't heard it. Someone put together this nice collection of Elvis candids to the song on YouTube so here it is for your listening and viewing pleasure.

So I guess it all begs the question. Did they or didn't they meet? I hope to God Dylan never tells. Some mysteries are better left unsolved. All my answers are in this touching track, and in the sound of Elvis' reverent voice when he says "Dylan" at the end of his beguiling snippet of I SHALL BE RELEASED from the early seventies...recorded perhaps not so coincidentally just after Dylan recorded this song.
Much like the famous Patterson footage of Bigfoot that still haunts my dreams, I hope the question of whether Elvis Presley and Bob Dylan ever actually met remains very much a mystery.

Factory Girl

It was with much trepidation that I went and saw George Hickenlooper's Factory Girl last night. When I first heard about this film, which seems like years ago, I was extremely excited mostly because of the casting of Sienna Miller. My initial thought I had the first time I saw Sienna Miller was that she beared an uncanny resemblance to Edie, so at least the casting was right.
The most positive things I can say about Factory Girl all concern Sienna Miller. She gives a rich and fascinating performance that makes Edie Sedgwick human and very real. She was born to play this part, unfortunately George Hickenlooper was not born to direct it.
Factory Girl, at only 90 minutes, covers a very small portion of Edie's life. With the exception of some flashbacks it ignores the childhood which emotionally scarred her and the monster of a father who molested her. This is mentioned in passing but Hickenlooper fails to give the importance to her early years that they deserved. Also nearly totally left out is the fascinating last few years of Edie's life, which in many ways is more interesting than her years with Warhol. We are shown throughout the film Sienna as Edie talking to a psychiatrist about her time in New York but her marriage is only mentioned briefly at the end and her final film Ciao Manhattan is never mentioned.
I realize this film is obviously centered on Edie's years with Warhol but leaving Ciao Manhattan out of the mix is an incredible mistake. The film remains one of the major legacies of Edie Sedgwick's career and life and the absence of even a mention is suspect.
The first half of the film is the strongest, for awhile it seems like Hickenlooper is going to allow Andy Warhol to be human and the early scenes between Andy and Edie are at times touching. Guy Pierce gives a wonderful performance as Warhol but as the film progresses the screenplay and direction lets Pierce and Warhol down. Warhol is presented as a total blank shell at the end and the audience is never told of the assignation attempt that would shatter his psyche and close him off from the sixties.
Warhol was well known as a prodigious worker but mostly in Factory Girl we just see him lying around and we are never given the idea of just how much work this man put out in the sixties. The factory itself is also done very poorly, we just see the same six or seven people lying around over and over again. Hickenlooper as managed to do the near impossible, he has made the factory and the sixties seem pretty boring.
Hickenlooper plays fast and loose with the facts, even going so far as to blatantly change things that we have footage of like interviews and Warhol's films. I realize, of course, that dramatic license has its place but Hickenlooper's disregard for the facts, or even something resembling them, is disturbing.
The Velvet Underground is shown coming in after Edie leaves the factory(one of the film's many WTF moments) and outside of a couple of brief performance clips they are not mentioned. The film's soundtrack is also a bizarre mix of mostly questionable songs but the inclusion of Tim Hardin's haunting Red Balloon is a welcome one.
The film's biggest flaw is the bizarre 'musician' character who is clearly Bob Dylan. Hayden Christensen gives one of the worst performances I have seen in a long time, portraying Dylan as a egotistical shallow bore. It is probably more of Hickenlooper and the screenwriters fault rather than Christensen but all of his scenes are wince inducing. I have no doubt that the relationship between Bob Dylan and Edie Sedgwick was a complex one but this film's portrayal of it is laughable and damaging to all of those involved. Hickenlooper can say what he will but it all comes down to the fact that Dylan (or his image) has a bigger marquee value than say Bob Neuwirth or anybody else who had a bigger impact on Edie Sedgwick. The whole Dylan segment feels like a board room discussion, 'hey let's let Bob Dylan break her heart and everything will make sense'.
Well life doesn't make sense, not yours, mine or Edie Sedgwicks. Hickenlooper would like to convince us that we should blame Bob Dylan or Andy Warhol for Edie Sedgwick's disintegration but the truth is a lot deeper than this film is willing to go.
As I was watching this film I wondered what people who didn't know anything about Edie, Warhol, The Factory, the sixties or even Bob Dylan would take from it. Perhaps that bothered me more than anything else, I have immersed myself with this stuff for almost twenty years but I feel for newcomers who will be sucked into Hickenlooper's limited view.

Someone else should make a film about Edie Sedgwick and Sienna Miller should play her again. Sienna gives a brilliantly moving performance that makes a very flawed and at times corrupt film watchable. It's a performance that is filled with love for Edie Sedgwick and the period that she helped shape, unfortunately she is being filmed by a man who apparently detests both.
Watch Factory Girl for an incredible lead performance and then go and buy the books Girl on Fire and Edie, search down Warhol's incredible films, listen to The Velvet Underground and watch Ciao Manhattan for the real Edie Sedgwick.

"I read that script, it's one of the most disgusting, foul things I've ever seen...by any illiterate retard...in a long time. There's no limit to how low some people will go to write something to make money". -Lou Reed-

Death is Not The End: Karen Elson's The Ghost Who Walks

A dazzling musical collision between vintage Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Marlene Dietrich and Hank William,s Karen Elson's wonderfully hypnotic is one of the first truly great LPS of this very young decade. Far from being a vanity project from a beautiful model, Elson's album is a truly bewitching and absolutely compelling week that shows as an artist of massive talent who should have a very long career in music ahead of her.
Born in the early part of 1979 in Oldham, England, the striking red-headed Elson began her career as a model when she was a teenager and immediately became a favorite of many top designers ranging from Marc Jacobs to Jean-Paul Gaultier. As far from the stereotypically air-headed super-model though, Elson has been dabbling in music, film and art since she first began to really make a name for herself in the early parts of the last decade.
A gifted vocalist and songwriter, Elson really began paving her way in the muisc industry with her acclaimed time in the ambitious New York Cabaret troup The Citizens Band. Wowing audiences and critics with her delicious vocal renditions of songs from the catalogues of everyone from The Velvet Underground to Elvis Presley, Elson caught the attention artists ranging like Robert Plant to Cat Power (both of whom she lent her beginning vocal chops to).
While her skills as a great song interrupter weren't in question, few knew just how solid a songwriter Elson was becoming during this time. Not even husband Jack White, who Elson met when she appeared in The White Stripes stunning Floria Sigismondi "Blue Orchid" video, until one day he heard her singing one of her songs in private in their Nashville home. Urged on by his excitement at her material, Elson took the major step of preparing and album, and with White and several other top musicians on board, The Ghost Who Walks began to come together last year.
Named after a nickname she had in her school days, Elson's The Ghost Who Walks is a really wonderful debut work that features beautifully inventive (and yet wisely understated) from White, a dozen beautifully designed songs, a top of the line band clearly enjoying how distinctly different this project is and Elson firing on all cylinders as creative leader. The Ghost Who Walks is one of the first albums of this decade that feels like it has a legitimate shot at becoming a classic and its freewheeling spirit is absolutely refreshing among the deliberately plastic and robotic pop that is currently controlling the summer's releases.
While the album is remarkably consistent as a whole there are some definite highlights, including the stunning opening set of songs that recall the Murder Ballads of Cave and Cash as well as the poetic collaborations between Exene Cervenka and Lydia Lunch. The album's title track and first single, The Ghost Who Walks opens with a bit that sounds like Donald Rubinstein's Martin score before coming out blazing with Dean Fertita's commanding guitar and organ work and Elson's beautiful vocal that is both seductive and menacing. Equally as powerful are the floow-up tracks, the bruising "The Truth is in the Ground" and the swampy fifties-tinged "Pretty Babies". Elson is a commanding lead throughout but White never lets the band get lost in the mist, especially Carl Broemel whose gorgeous sounding pedal steel guitar is present on over half the album's tracks.
While the album has a definite country and rockabilly sound throughout, a couple of the most remarkable tracks show the influence of German composer Kurt Weill and obvious Elson influence Marlene Dietrich, such as "A Hundred Years From Now" which would have been right at home in a Von Sternberg film as imagined by David Lynch. The Velvet Underground and Nico's influence can also be felt but what is more remarkable than the wide variety of influences on the album is Elson's ability to mix them up and make them her own. The Ghost Who Walks is the kind of truly great Americana record that only someone from outside the country deliver.
Elson's debut only slightly slips on a couple of tracks that are more straightforward country than anything else, such as "Lunasa" and "The Last Laugh". They are far from bad tracks though, they just feeling slightly limp when placed beside such powerfully strange and adventurous songs like "The Birds The Circle" and the powerhouse closer, "Mouths to Feed." Elson offers a quote by Anais Nin in The Ghost Who Walks' liner notes and, like Nin's best works, The Ghost Who Walks is a wildly seductive and original vision from a clearly talented artist. I really can't wait to hear and see what she comes up with next.