TOMORROW ON THE MORNING JOLT: GILLIAN, FLORENCE, IMELDA

Tomorrow on SiriusXM OutQ's The Morning Jolt with Larry Flick I'm bringing in some of my favorite albums of 2011, but the theme is that all of these records feature lead vocals by women.


Gillian Welch's The Harrow and The Harvest is definitely one of my favorites of the year. I'm not the only one who feels that way: Mojo magazine gave it a five out of five star rating. Whenever I listen to it, I find it odd that it's just her name on the cover: it seems that her and her partner David Rawlings are equally vital to the music.

Florence + The Machine's Ceremonials is an "epic" album.  That word gets overused these days, but everything -- the songs, the performances, the arrangements -- it's a work of art.

Imelda May's Mayhem came out in Europe last year, but in the U.S. this year. She is really talented: a great singer, very charismatic, great sense of style, and she writes great songs.   You may have heard her singing on Jeff Beck's recent albums Emotion & Commotion and Rock & Roll Party. In fact, if *I* wanted to have a rock and roll party, I'd never be able to afford Jeff Beck, but one day if I'm pretty successful, I might call on Imelda May and her great band to rock my party!

Other records I hope we'll get to: Shelby Lynne's Revelation Road, Allison Moorer's Crows (which actually came out last year), Joss Stone's LP4 and The Tedeschi Trucks Band's Revelator. (That band features married couple Derek Trucks of The Allman Brothers Band and singer-songwriter Susan Tedeschi.) And maybe I'll give another shout out to The Make Out, who have one of my favorite songs of 2011, "I Don't Want Anyone Who Wants Me."

GILLIAN WELCH - THE HARROW AND THE HARVEST

Gillian Welch recently released her first album in eight years, The Harrow & The Harvest. Or, I should say their last album. Even though Gillian's name is on the cover, it's Gillian and long-time partner and collaborator David Rawlings pictured on the cover, and they are the only two musicians on the album. This is Gillian's first album in eight years, although the two of them released an album under the name The David Rawlings Machine two years ago. All this background just makes the point that these two make an incredible team.

Even if you're not familiar with their music, when you hear them sing and play together, they sound so seamless, it's almost as if they have one voice.  No one else sounds quite like them.

The new album reminds me of their early stuff like Revival and Time (The Revelator). Very old-timey, very ominous.  Dark.  I remember when I first heard Gillian/David's music, I didn't know who wrote their songs, and I kind of thought they were doing old "traditional" songs. Nope, they write their songs, it's just that they sound that timeless.  That's how it is on this album also.

I like this album a lot, and I'm not the only one.  One of my favorite music writers, Syvie Simmons of Mojo Magazine gave the album a 5 stars "instant classic" review.  It's not an album that will get a lot of hype, but it's definitely rewarding (and hopefully will land in lots of critics "top albums" lists at the end of the year).