CATCHING UP: SANTANA/ALLMAN BROTHERS CONCERT REVIEW

photo credit: Maria Ives 

I'm trying to bring my blog up to speed, and I'm going to post links to some concerts that I reviewed over the past few months, with extra bonus photos and my more personal takes on the shows.

Over the summer, I saw the Allman Brothers Band/Santana tour, which was pretty great. My review for work is here.

This was a true co-headlining tour, with the band's switching the order each night. The night before I went, the Allmans played last, and apparently, Gregg Allman didn't sound great. The night I went, Gregg was still a bit rough, but I thought it was a really good show... if not as transcendent as the one I'd seen earlier in the year, when they opened their annual string of shows at New York City's Beacon Theatre. The band really is powered by their incredible guitar team of Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks.  They blow my mind every time.

I hadn't seen Santana for a really long time.  I like his new singers, but I'd love to see him reunite with original singer/keyboardist Gregg Rolie (and Gregg told me he'd be into it). Still, his current band is great, and he gives them all space to solo and contribute; I thought it was a cool show. The highlight was when Derek and Warren joined them, although the jam went too far into Dead-like jam-band territory after a while. Still, I really liked the show, and am getting ready to see the Allmans once again when they play the Beacon again this year.

photo credit: Maria Ives

photo credit: Maria Ives 

BUDDY GUY - LIVING PROOF (TIE FOR #11)

Well, today on The Morning Jolt with Larry Flick on SiriusXM OutQ, I listed my top 10 albums of the year.  Of course it took me all weekend plus Monday to decide what LPs I settled on. And there were a lot of great albums that almost made it, so it's a big tie for #11.  One of those albums is Buddy Guy's latest, Living Proof.

It's the best "blues" album of the year, but I don't want to categorize it like that. There aren't many other blues artists anyway, Buddy is one of the last true bluesmen standing, hardly anyone holds a candle to the man. And Buddy could coast now if he wanted to: he has nothing left to prove. He is universally regarded as a legend, and a few years ago, he finally got into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (many years too late, but better late than never). Everyone knows that his style was a huge influence (not just an influence, but a HUGE influence) on Clapton, Hendrix, Beck, Page, Townshend, and through them, legions of other guitar players. The odds of him making a landmark album at this point is against the odds, but guess what, this is a pretty awesome album.  It's nearly as good as 2001's Dirt Floor, which is my favorite thing by him since maybe the Chess era.

He starts off totally badass with "74 Years Young."  It begins as a country blues number, and then hits the gas and takes it to Chicago, where Buddy rips your head off with some of his hottest playing EVER. "Got a few scars, from all the battles I won, I'm 74 years young...Tonight I feel like I'm 21, I'm 74 years young!" Dude is still heavy as hell, he means it when he sings. It's the truth.

I don't want to beat up on wimpy bands too much, but after listening to this, it's hard to listen to, like, Vampire Weekend.

The album isn't just for blues people or guitar players, at least not in my opinion.  You don't have to have tons of blues records to dig this. It's a great album. I'm glad that it isn't (yet another) all-star collab album, but there are two guests on the album. Carlos Santana - who loves Buddy - plays on "Where The Blues Begin," which is sort of what you would expect.  A hot blues workout with Santana's very identifiable sound. It's my favorite thing Carlos has done this year too.

But my favorite part of the album may be Buddy's duet with B.B. King, "Stay Around A Little Longer."   I don't think anyone would argue that B.B. is the biggest living blues legend.  That's sort of by design: in one of the Scorsese-produced blues docs from a few years back, old footage of B.B. shows him saying that he wants to be the biggest blues artist ever, and he actually made it happen. Anyway, I'd say B.B. is the biggest, Buddy is the second biggest. They've worked together often, and they've known each other for decades, and "Stay Around A Little Longer" sees them reflecting back on the years and being thankful for what they've got. It's one of my favorite songs of the year. I love when Buddy sings, "There's more songs to be sung.  We've come a long way, but we're a long way from being done!"

I hope that's true.  But if these giants decide to retire, this is a fine curtain call. B.B. is still doing it, and judging by this album, Buddy (who is younger than B.B.) in fact does have a lot of songs left in him. After all, he feels like he's 21.

TOMORROW ON OUTQ: A TALE OF TWO GENESIS SINGERS' COVERS ALBUMS

That headline may be an assault on grammar, so I apologize for that. But tomorrow morning on SIRIUS XM OutQ's The Morning Jolt with Larry Flick (featuring co-host Keith Price), I'll be talking about the latest releases from original Genesis singer Peter Gabriel and the guy who took over after Peter left the band, Phil Collins. They have both released new albums this year, both "covers albums." 

Phil Collins' Going Back sees him revisiting some of his earliest influences, namely Motown (or mostly Motown).  He's not trying to prove anything - he has nothing to prove to anyone.  Between Genesis and his solo career (not to mention the other artists he has produced and drummed for), the dude has sold more records than nearly anyone. A couple of years ago, he went on what he called "The First Final Farewell Tour," and then he did the Genesis reunion, which was pretty much a one-off deal. He's been pretty public about saying that he is happy to sort of finish his music career (in my mind, the dude pays way too much attention to his many critics). I kind of felt like this album, while being a labor of love, was likely prompted by his record label. I bet he had another record left on his deal, and they figured he could do a Rod Stewart "Great American Songbook" type deal. (I've heard that Elton John's label asked him to do that, but he wouldn't.) Famous adult-contemporary singer + songs that everyone knows and loves = $$$! I guess that could happen here, but whereas Rod did famous songs, Phil mixed some very famous Motown songs ("Heatwave," "Uptight," "Papa Was A Rolling Stone") and lesser known ones ("Blame It n The Sun," "In My Lonely Room"). It's not "hits" from start to finish. The album is enjoyable, Phil sounds like he is having fun, and The Funk Brothers (bassist Bob Babbitt, guitarist Eddie Willis and guitarist Ray Monette, who played on many original Motown tunes) are having fun also. They don't really add anything to the originals, but I don't think Phil was trying to make a Big Statement, he was just having a great time and paying tribute. It's a nice album without any pretentions.

Which brings me to Peter Gabriel's Scratch My Back, which I've written about before, and we have talked about it before on Larry Flick's show. I'm a huge Peter Gabriel fan, but I didn't like it (the first time I didn't enjoy a non-soundtrack album from Peter). I wanted to revisit it because (a) I felt guilty about kind of slamming it, (b) I thought it made an interesting contrast with Phil's album and (c) I wanted to talk about some of the I'll Scratch Yours covers of Peter's songs by other artists. The album features Peter doing no guitar/no drums covers of NPR and hipster approved acts. Peter's plan was to have everyone who he covered, cover him. A few of them flat out said no, including David Bowie and Neil Young. And supposedly Radiohead doesn't want to scratch his back, either. Peter is very much "too hip for the room," so it is interesting to see him get dissed. Anyway, as much as I try, I really can't get into the album, except for two songs: his cover of The Magnetic Fields' "The Book Of Love" and Lou Reed's "The Power Of The Heart." They are both such lovely songs. I have heard the original "Book Of Love," and I think Peter's version is an improvement. I hadn't heard "The Power Of The Heart," I think it is a semi-recent Lou song, but Peter does such a beautiful version of it. I'll Scratch Yours has been coming out one single at a time, and some of my favorites are Stephin Merritt's "Not One Of Us" (he is the leader of Magnetic Fields) and Paul Simon's "Biko," which sounds like it was written for him.

I also wanted to revisit Santana's Guitar Heaven, even though we talked about it last week. Last week, I'd only heard "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" with india.arie and Yo-Yo Ma. This week I went to iTunes to get "Whole Lotta Love" with Chris Cornell and "Little Wing" with Joe Cocker. "Whole Lotta Love" is all right, but there's no vibe. It sounds like a studio band recorded the track and emailed it to Carlos for some leads and Cornell for vocals. I think it would have been cooler if it were Chris backed up by Carlos and his touring band, live in the studio. This sounds like something recorded for Transformers or some other summer popcorn flick. Which is fine, but it could have been so much better. I'm not a huge Joe Cocker fan, I think he oversings a lot, but I think he does OK on "Little Wing," but he is a really good song interpreter (by necessity, as he doesn't write songs). I haven't heard anything else from the album: I really don't want to hear singers from Bush or Stone Temple Pilots or Train or Daughtry.

I also want to bring up some older "covers" albums, and one of the earliest ones that I am aware of is David Bowie's 1973 album Pinups. Bowie had retired his "Ziggy Stardust" persona but was still working with guys from The Spiders From Mars, and this album was a tribute to the garage rock that all of those guys loved: The Kinks, The Who, The Pretty Things, Them and The Yardbirds. Fun stuff.

Maybe my favorite covers record ever is Chris Whitley's 2000 album Perfect Day. I've talked about Chris recently, but we focused on his classic debut, Living With The Law. Recorded on March 28 and 29, 2000 (just two days) to tape (not harddrive) with Billy Martin and Chris Wood of the jazz trio Medeski, Martin & Wood, it is unbelievably beautiful. I got to interview him when it came out, and we both marveled over the first song on the album, Bob Dylan's "Spanish Harlem Incident." He said that that song was so perfect, it almost made him want to quit. I'm not the dude who says that everyone does Dylan songs better than Dylan does, but I like Chris' version of that song best. The title track is a Lou Reed cover, which I believe Susan Boyle has covered for her next album. Good for her, people should hear Chris' version.

The Ramones' Acid Eaters was their second to last album. It seemed kind of weird: they were covering lots of '60s stuff, lots of it affiliated with hippie music, which The Ramones supposedly helped to destroy with punk rock. Well, that's the way history was written, but The Ramones made history, they didn't write it. They loved bands like Love and The Jefferson Airplane, and they paid tribute to the songs, Ramones-style.

Finally, Metallica's Garage Inc. One disc was a collection of their previously released covers, the other were new ones. They've always done a great job at putting their own spin on songs, and there's no better example of that than their cover of Bob Seger's "Turn The Page." But the whole collection is awesome.

This only hits the tip of the iceberg as far as great cover albums, but these are some of my favorites.

WHAT THE... SANTANA'S SUPERNATURAL TURNS 10!

Man, time does fly.  Next week, Sony Legacy is releasing the tenth anniversary edition of Santana's Supernatural. It isn't remastered, I don't think - it came out in 1999, I doubt they could improve the sound! Disc 1 is the entire original album, and disc 2 includes some tracks that didn't make the original (including a second collab with Dave Matthews and Carter Beauford, "Rain Down On Me," remixes of "Corazon Espinado" (the song that featured Mana, the Mexican rock band) and the huge hit "Maria Maria" (produced by Wyclef Jean and featuring his then-protegees The Product G&B), an extra jam with Eric Clapton and some other stuff.

The album was a pretty stunning comeback for Carlos Santana. At that point, he was pretty much an "oldies" classic rock type artist.  This not only made him a rock star, it made him a pop star and even saw him crossing over into hip-hop and R&B. Yes, people can bitch that a lot of it was contrived marketing on the part of co-producer and record mogul Clive Davis (who originally signed him to Columbia after Woodstock, and signed him to Arista thirty years later). But the fact is, these "all-star" type albums that are supposed to bring a legacy artist to a new generation hardly ever work, and I can't think of many, or any, that have worked this well (with the exception of Ray Charles' Genius Loves Company). It connected Carlos with the jam band scene that he had such a huge influence over via the Dave Matthews collab ("Love Of My Life" - the first single, although it didn't really become a hit), the alt-rock scene with "Put Your Lights On," featuring former House Of Pain MC turned singer/songwriter Everlast (and that song was a pretty huge hit), hip-hop and R&B with "Maria Maria" as well as "Do You Like The Way" produced by Lauryn Hill and featuring Cee-Lo Green (then with Goodie Mob, now more famous for Gnarls Barkley). The song with Mana reminded folks that he was the first big Latino rock star (or one of them), and the Clapton song was a nod towards classic rock. But it was his biggest pop hit ever, "Smooth," a collaboration with Rob Thomas of matchbox twenty that really made the album a monster. I've written about how people really hate on the guy, but this is a good song, and as far as I'm concerned, bringing Carlos Santana to new audiences is a great thing.

Anyway, the extras on the album are cool, but not essential. Amazon is selling the album for $13.99, which is good for two cds, but if you have the original, it may not be a totally necessary purchase.

ROB THOMAS? I AIN'T MAD AT HIM

When I read the writings of some of the more angry-seeming rock critics, I often wonder what inspires their anger. I mean, I don't like a lot of artist - but I don't hate them. As I like to say, no musician has ever "kicked my dog."

matchbox twenty singer and solo superstar Rob Thomas definitely hasn't kicked anyone's dog (and in fact is a friend to dogs everywhere) but you wouldn't know it by reading the venom aimed at him. Urban Dictionary suggests that he be thrown in a meat grinder! Stereogum, meanwhile, points out that you can download Rob's cover of Smashing Pumpkins' "1979" at iTunes before adding "but we don't recommend it." You know who doesn't hate Rob? Carlos Santana! You may recall that Rob co-wrote and sung Carlos' huge comeback hit "Smooth" ten years ago. Yeah, I got tired of that song too, but it is a great song. Carlos recently joined Rob on stage for "Smooth," as well as covers of Bill Withers' "Ain't No Sunshine" and Jimi Hendrix's "Voodoo Chile." I would think that, no matter who was hating on you, if Carlos Santana joined you onstage, it would kind of counteract everything else. By the way, you can buy a wristband with a usb drive that has a live recording of the show here.

1969: NOT JUST ABOUT WOODSTOCK

So, there's been a lot of hype about
Woodstock's 40th anniversary and how big of a deal it was. I realize it was a big deal, but lots of other stuff was happening in 1969. It was the year I was born! Here's a few other cool music events from that year: Former Buffalo Springfield member Neil Young went solo: his first solo album, Neil Young, wasn't great, but the follow-up, released later that year, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere was his first album with Crazy Horse. Led Zeppelin and The Stooges released classic self-titled debuts (Zep also released their second album in '69), and The Allman Brothers Band and Santana and Yes also released their debuts. Sly & The Family Stone released Stand!, Bob Dylan went "country" with Nashville Skyline, The Velvet Underground released thier self titled classic, Creedence Clearwater Revival released Green River and Blind Faith released thier only album. The Beatles wrapped things up with Abbey Road, The Rolling Stones had Let It Bleed and The Who unleashed Tommy. Also in 1969, Earth changed thier name to Black Sabbath (they'd release their debut in early 1970). A good year for music, and not just hippie stuff.

SMOKEY ROBINSON'S NEW ALBUM

Smokey Robinson releases a new album, Time Flies When You're Having Fun this month. It has collaborations with Carlos Santana, Joss Stone and india.arie, and features a cover of "Don't Know Why" (made famous by Norah Jones). I got to interview Smokey last year and it was an honor and a privilege. I hope to get the chance again.

CARLOS SANTANA TO BARACK OBAMA: LEGALIZE IT

Unsurprisingly, Carlos Santana thinks the President should legalize pot. He does point out that lots of tax money could be collected from this ... which is probably what will eventually get it decriminalized at some point.  It's all about the benjamins, baby. 

SANTANA TO DO VEGAS

Carlos Santana is going to do a residency at The Joint at the Hard Rock in Vegas which will last through next year. It's called "Supernatural Santana: A Trip Through The Hits," and it's going to be, well, his greatest hits.  Every night.  Hard to imagine him doing that, but I'm sure it will pay well. It's the only way to see him west of the Mississippi.