TIE FOR #11 - "THE LOST NOTEBOOKS OF HANK WILLIAMS"

I usually don't include compilation albums on my year-end best-ofs, but I'll make an exception for The Lost Notebooks Of Hank Williams. The album started out as a Bob Dylan project: he was given some "lost" notebooks with lyrics that Hank Williams never put to music.  Bob ended up doing one song, "The Love That Faded," which is excellent.

So, it went from being a Bob album to a tribute of sorts... with a number of big name artists creating new songs out of Williams lyrics.  The lineup features Alan Jackson, Norah Jones, Jack White, Lucinda Williams, Vince Gill with Rodney Crowell, Patty Loveless, Levon Helm, Holly Williams (with her father, Hank Williams Jr. on backing vocals), Jakob Dylan, Sheryl Crow and Merle Haggard.

I imagine that these days, people are more likely to download individual tracks rather than buy compilations.  In this case, it's worth it to pick up the whole thing.  First of all, the entire album is great.  Rock fans may not be hip to, say, Alan Jackson, but his song "You've Been Lonesome Too" is excellent. On the flipside, mainstream country fans may not be too interested in (Nashville resident) Jack White.  But his song "You Know That I Know" is also amazing. Hank's granddaughter Holly has a great voice... and hearing Hank Jr.'s backing vocals almost made me forget about his insane comments on Fox News about The President.

Besides all of that, the CD includes extensive liner notes about Hank, and gives the history of the notebooks that provided the source material for the record.

Hank Williams is surely one of the greatest songwriters of all time, in any genre. This album gives us some of his lost lyrics, which is a gift.  And if the inclusion of any of these artists turns their fanbases on to Hank's music, that's an even greater one.  So big props to producer Mary Martin: I'm sure this was a really long project, but I'm glad it's out.

TRUE BLOOD VOL. 3 (THE MUSIC)

First off, I'll say that as a big fan of the True Blood series, I thought this past season (season 4) was bad.  Really bad.  Embarrassingly bad. If you've been reading my blog for a while, you know I'm more likely to like things than to not like them.  And I'm much more likely to write about things that I like than things that I don't like.  But from the awful season premiere (when they went to fairy land, I thought that sleestaks were going to start running around) to the finale ("can you let us down, we're getting a bit crispy," Sookie breaking up with both vampire dudes in one of the cheesiest scenes I've ever sat through on any show), it was just bad. And taking Lafayette - one of the show's best characters, mainly because of his dislike/distrust of anything supernatural, and making him into a conduit for the ghost of an evil spirit... well, I guess it could have been a cool idea, but it came off corny as hell. 

Of course, this is not a TV blog, it's a music blog, and right now, as I'm giving out candy to trick or treaters, I'm listening to the latest installment of the True Blood compilation series. And as annoyed as I am at the show's producer Alan Ball, I have to give it up  -- again -- to music supervisor Gary Calamar. Last year, I wrote about the second CD in the series, and expressed serious admiration for True Blood's music team, and I still feel the same way. They come up with songs that fit the mood, regardless of era and genre (it's the same reason why I love the greatest radio station in the world, the Underground Garage).

The album has a number of new tracks, which I imagine were recorded specifically for the show. I don't know if you could say that being on True Blood is the adult equivalent of being on a Twilight soundtrack, but I guess it is comparable.  Regardless, there are some really great tracks here. The opener combines stuff I love with stuff I don't:  Karen Elson (whose debut, The Ghost Who Walks, was one of my favorite albums of 2010) covers Donovan (who I've never been a fan of) with "Season Of The Witch."  Karen's ex-, Jack White produces and Donovan himself sings on the track.

The late Gil Scott-Heron covered Robert Johnson's "Me and The Devil."  Obviously a classic, and Mr. Scott-Heron brought his own thing to it. I guess this is one of the last things he ever recorded. 

Hipsters must be melting over the union of Neko Case and Nick Cave covering The Zombies' "She's Not There." But they should, it's pretty great, and I remember thinking that as it aired over the credits of one of this season's episodes. 

PJ Harvey and Gordon Gano of The Violent Femmes' "Hittin' The Ground" is the title track from Gano's debut solo album from 2002. It's a really fun song, and PJ sounds like she's really getting her Patti Smith on. It's not a new song, but it's new to me, and probably is to a lot of other people.

And in a combo made in Americana heaven, Jakob Dylan and The Jayhawks' Gary Louris do "Gonna Be A Darkness," which they co-wrote.  There are so many good songs here!  A group called The Heavy cover Larua Nyro's "And When I Die," and there's a cool Blackroc song (Blackroc is The Black Keys in hip-hop mode) called "What You Do To Me."  Then, there's some older songs, like Slim Harpo's "Te Ni Nee Ni Nu," Massive Attack featuring Hope Sandoval "Paradise Circus," and Siouxie & The Banshees' "Spellbound."

Here's hoping that the next season of True Blood makes up for this one, but I know that the music will always be on point.

JAKOB DYLAN - WOMEN AND COUNTRY - TIE FOR #11

The latest solo album by Jakob Dylan, Women and Country, was another album that I really enjoyed from 2010. Reuniting with T-Bone ("Him Again") Burnett - who produced The Wallflowers classic Bringing Down The Horse - Dylan went for a more "full" sound than on his solo debut, Seeing Things (produced by Rick "Him Again" Rubin).

Most of the album has a quiet and laid back sound, but there is one notable exception, "Lend A Hand" which has a Tom Waits goes to New Orleans type marching band sound. It's my favorite song on the album, and one of my favorite songs of the year. Other highlights on the album include "Nothing But The Whole Wide World" and "Everybody's Hurting."

It's a bummer that the press seems to have lost interest in Jakob Dylan, and seem to regard him as a '90s artist who is past his prime.  I don't want to make any comparisons to any other artists, but I think that he'll be making great music for the rest of this decade and well beyond that. Don't sleep on this album just because the press has been.

TOMORROW ON OUTQ: SINGER-SONGWRITERS

For those of you who are new to No Expiration, every Wednesday morning at 9 am ET I go on the SIRIUS XM channel OutQ. I am a weekly contributor to The Morning Jolt with Larry Flick. Tomorrow I'll be talking about some great singer-songwriters, including one of Larry's favorites.  

A while ago, I wrote about James Taylor's tour with Carole King. It turns out that it is one of the hottest tours of the year! In the early '70s, James and Carole shared a backing band and did gigs together.  They actually did a few shows at the Trobadour in L.A. a while back, and have just released an excellent live album from the shows. It's easy to make fun of this and call it boomer soft-rock or whatever.  But James is an incredible songwriter and in my opinion, Carole is even better. She is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame - as a "non-performer." For her career as a songwriter for other people (along with her former songwriting partner and ex-husband, Gerry Goffin). I would argue that she should be inducted for a second time, this time as a performer. 

Speaking of Carole King, Sony Legacy has just released The Essential Carole King. It is a bit different than the many other releases in the Essential series, in that one disc is Carole performing her own songs, the other disc features other artists, including Aretha Franklin, Little Eva, The Cookies and Billy Joel, performing her songs.  Before she was a performer, she worked as a songwriter in the Brill Building (Neil Diamond worked there as well). She wrote a lot of great songs for other people: but her own album Tapestry is a stone cold classic. 

A lot of people classify Jackson Browne along with James and Carole: a singer-songwriter who came of age in the late '60s and early '70s who seemed to be the drier next movement after the hippie era. And like James and Carole, he was never part of a band to reunite with.  James and Carole had both done some stripped down and solo tours, and without a band to reunite with, they reunited with each other (and their former backing band). Jackson has also done the stripped down thing in recent years, but for this live album, he reunited with his multi-instrumentalist collaborator David Lindley.  Their live album was recorded on a tour of Spain in 2006, and features some collaborators from Spain. I'm not a huge Jackson fan.  I love his politics, but I'm not totally into his music.  He is one of Larry Flick's favorite artists though. I interviewed Jackson once, and he was very cool.  

Jakob Dylan just released his second solo album, Women & Country.  His first one was produced by Rick Rubin and was stripped down a la double R's productions of Johnny Cash and Neil Diamond. This time around he worked with T-Bone Burnett who produced his most successful album, The Wallflowers' Bringing Down The Horse. Women & Country is great. I think Jakob is always going to be underrated. First of all, there's dad. Second, that Wallflowers album was so big, he isn't likely to get another album that is that popular. But you have me, so you don't need hype!  Trust me, get this album. 

Jack Johnson has just released his latest album, To The Sea, which apparently had one of the best first week sales numbers of 2010.  Of course, that doesn't mean as much as it used to, but good for Jack. I think even he is surprised at how successful he's been.  I've interviewed him, and he seems to be such a good guy. People think he doesn't have any edge to him, but he grew up listening to Fugazi and Metallica.  It's just not his thing to make that kind of music. Anyway, I like a lot of his songs (I don't know if I'd go to a concert, but I've enjoyed seeing him open for other people and at festivals), and I really like his new song, "You and Your Heart." 

Finally, Karen Elson a new artist who took me totally by surprise. I promise to write more about her pretty soon.  I really like her self titled debut album. 

JAKOB DYLAN'S NEW ALBUM

I really dug Jakob Dylan's solo debut, 2008's Seeing Things, produced by Rick Rubin. Now he's about to release his second solo album, Women and Country, due April 6 according to Billboard. This one will be produced by T-Bone Burnett, who produced The Wallflowers' breakthrough album, 1996's great Bringing Down The Horse. Solo artist/New Pornographers singer Neko Case and a singer named Kelly Hogan guest on much of the album, and Jakob plans to tour with them this summer. People get hung up on two things with Jakob Dylan: one, his last name, and the other is that he's kind of an icon of the '90s. Get over it, he is a great songwriter and is making great music today.

BEST OF THE 00's: RICK RUBIN

I have often expressed admiration of Rick Rubin 's production skills. If I were a producer, I'd like to be like him: hip-hop, metal, funk, punk, country, singer-songwriters, nothing is off limits, and he proved that again in the '00s.

He remained close collaborator of Johnny Cash, producing American III: Solitary Man and American IV: The Man Comes Around in the early years of the decade. I would argue that Cash's American series of albums are nearly as good as anything he'd ever done, obviously American IV's cover of Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt" was one of the greatest moments of an incredible career. Rick also curated the incredible Unearthed box set, allowing fans to hear some of the incredible things that didn't make the American albums. He's also been the keeper of the Cash flame, releasing American V: A Hundred Highways, which featured "God's Gonna Cut You Down" (and now there's word that 2010 will see the final album from the American sessions, American VI: Ain't No Grave.

Rick started working with Tom Morello, who certainly was paying attention to Rubin's rap/rock/metal hybrids in the '80s. Rubin produced Rage Against The Machine's final album, the all-covers Renegades, as well as their posthumously released live album, Live At The Grand Olympic Auditorium (which turned out to be the band's final shows before reuniting years later). Rubin hooked Morello and Rage mates Tim Commerford and Brad Wilk up with ex-Soundgarden singer Chris Cornell and produced the first Audioslave album.

One of Rick's supposed talents is to discover new talent, and I don't know how much he's done that in the past decade, but one band he did work with early on is System Of A Down, who are one of the best metal bands around (even though they seem to be on hiatus at the moment). Rick signed them to his American Recordings, and has produced their albums, including (this decade) Toxicity (which, bizarely, hit #1 on 9/11), Steal This Album! and Hypnotize and Mesmerize.  Another younger band in the heavy guitar category he worked with The Mars Volta on their De-Loused In The Comatorium album.

He remained the go-to guy for The Red Hot Chili Peppers (having worked with them ever since 1991's BloodSugarSexMagik), producing the excellent By The Way and the maybe-too-long double album Stadium Arcadium. I really hope they work with him on the next one, which will be their first since guitarist John Frusciante quit (again).

He briefly returned to hip-hop, producing a cover of Ice-T's "99 Problems" for Jay-Z's "final" record, The Black Album. It may be Jay's finest moment. Less successful was his "Better Than I Ever Been" track that he produced for Nike, featuring Kanye West, Nas and KRS-One (DJ Premier later did a better remix which also featured Rakim).

Rubin also veered closer to the mainstream, producing Shakria's Oral Fixation albums, which included her huge hit collaboration with Wyclef Jean, "Hips Don't Lie." There was also The Dixie Chicks' album Taking The Long Way featuring the classic "Not Ready To Make Nice." And he tried to give Neil Diamond a new credibility by doing some American Recordings type stripped down albums with him. He also worked with Weezer, Wallflowers frontman Jakob Dylan on his first solo album, a new-ish Americana-type band called The Avett Brothers who I need to write more about, and The Gossip. And of course, Metallica's triumphant comeback album, Death Magnetic. He also produced some tracks with U2, but the full album he worked on with them remains in the vaults.  And he is apparently working with Crosby Stills & Nash and ZZ Top at the moment. Will he discover more LL Cool J's, Run-D.M.C.s, Public Enemys, Slayers and System of a Downs in the '00s? That's what will be interesting to see.

TOMORROW ON OUTQ

I'll be talking about The Fireman.  Who?  It's sort of like Paul McCartney's Traveling Wilburys. Not really: it's Paul with Youth, the bassist from Killing Joke who has produced and remixed tons of bands, including Depeche Mode and The Verve. Anyway, The Fireman's latest album, Electric Arguments (their first with vocals, the others were instrumental and more ambient) has gotten great reviews, which Paul's albums don't always get. 

Also, Willie Nelson's new album with Asleep At The Wheel, Willie & The Wheel. And Lily Allen's new album, It's Not Me, It's You. Larry Flick likes the album a lot, he made a copy for me, and I'm enjoying it too.  She's Joe Strummer's goddaughter, so she deserves a listen. 

Also the latest stuff from (RED)wire: This week I got Jakob Dylan and Elvis Costello covering The Clash's "Straight To Hell." I was also going to talk about The Beastie Boys' 20th anniversary reissue of Paul's Boutique. You can get a free download of a "director's commentary" track.  But don't bother, it's pretty boring. Instead, you should check out the 33 1/3 Paul's Boutique book, which is the whole story behind the classic album. I'll also be talking about the 33 1/3 series, and I have a few editions to bring in and discuss if time permits. 

TONS OF COOL NEW MUSIC

Lots of great albums came out this week: I'll write about them individually another time. But a quick rundown: 

Solomon Burke's Like A Fire: Mr. Burke's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame a few years ago seemed to re-ignite his career, and he's done three great albums with three great producers: Joe Henry, Don Was and Buddy Miller.  This one was produced by Steve Jordan of Keith Richards' s X-Pensive Winos (he's also played with tons of other artists). Ben Harper and keb'mo are among the guests on the album. 

I've always been a bit skeptical of My Morning Jacket. But a pal of mine gave me a burned copy of their new album, Evil Urges, and I dug it on first listen, and decided to buy a copy. 

James Hunter (age 45 1/2 according to his liner note) is one of my favorite new artists of recent years - I can't believe this is the first time I'm writing about him. His last album, People Gonna Talk, was excellent, and I really like the new one, The Hard Way, already. His music is unaffected by pretty much anything that happened in the last, say, four decades. The British Invasion, punk, new wave, hip-hop ... none of that figures into what he does. He's like a Sam Cooke disciple with a mean guitar.  

Jakob Dylan has just released his solo debut, Seeing Things, which was produced by Rick Rubin. I was surprised to see a Jakob Dylan solo album - it's not like The Wallflowers is a democracy - but without keyboardist Rami Jaffe (who has been playing with The Foo Fighters lately), it has a different sound. 

Last, but definitely not least, is Emmylou Harris ' new album, All I Intended To Be. (I listed this in reverse alphabetical order.) Very different from her more modern-sounding recent albums. This one reunites her with her ex-husband Brian Ahern, who produced her first 10 or so albums. A downbeat and sad album, but still beautiful. My favorite will always be Wrecking Ball, but this is a good one, too, and I just love Emmylou.  

Next week, my wallet will get a breather - yes I know the Coldplay album comes out, I like them, but I don't think I'll buy that album.