Specs & Pricing

Music
Rock etc.
especially captivating on the ebullient
Irish-flavored instrumental, “O Santo
De Polvora”), a measure of how deeply
invested everyone was in the task at hand.
Would that Thile could work out the love
thing as assuredly as he does the music his
misadventures inspires. DM
Further Listening: Jim Lauderdale &
Donna the Buffalo: Wait ‘Til Spring;
The Seldom Scene: Act I
Madeleine Peyroux:
Half the Perfect
World.
Larry Klein, producer.
Rounder 11661-3252.
Madeleine Peyroux is a singer of a different
place and time. The Georgia-born, Parisraised
jazz stylist sings in the classic tradition
of her idols, Billie Holiday and Bessie Smith,
and seems indifferent to the vocal histrionics
and artifice of current pop divas or jazz/bigband
crossovers like Norah Jones and Jane
Monheit. Her voice is a soft sell—calming
and lilting with a winking insouciance
Marlene Dietrich would appreciate. The 32-
year-old’s retrograde persona calls to mind
late nights, basement cabarets, an audience
of eyes squinting through the blue fog of
Gaulois smoke, and pouty lips caressing the
rims of wine glasses in anticipation.
Peyroux’s Half the Perfect World follows up
Careless Love, a 2004 effort that broke her
into the mainstream with much help from
Starbucks’ stamp of approval and retailing
effort. The new record’s twelve tracks are
rooted in a jazz/folk style but tilts toward
the contemporary with covers like Tom
Waits’ “Looking For the Heart Of Saturday
Night,” Fred Neil’s “Everybody’s Talkin’,”
Johnny Mercer’s “Summer Wind,” and a pair
of tracks by Leonard Cohen that include
156 December 2006 The Absolute Sound
the superb bossa-nova-accented title track.
Another standout is Peyroux’s duet with k.d.
lang of Joni Mitchell’s “River,” an intriguing
contrast of stylistic visions that underscore
the song’s ambivalent theme. Peyroux also
collaborated on four tunes with returning
producer Larry Klein and Norah Jones alum
Jesse Harris, and with Steely Dan’s Walter
Becker on the jaunty survival anthem “I’m
All Right.” She’s also reunited with her crack
core of musicians, including guitarist Dean
Parks, bassist David Piltch, and drummer
Jay Bellerose.
The sonics are tasteful, with a darker tonal
balance that seems appropriate. Sensitivity
is given to micro-dynamics and low-level
details. Peyroux’s naturalistic vocals are set
back in the soundstage, maintaining a clubby
atmospheric. The album closes with “Smile,”
complete with ukulele accompaniment, a
classic that in Peyroux’s hands expresses
the hope and optimism required to navigate
the mysterious depths of life’s waters.
Neil Gader
Further Listening: Jane Monheit:
Come Dream With Me; Norah Jones:
Come Away With Me
Solomon Burke:
Nashville.
Buddy Miller, producer.
Shout! Factory 10179.
During Solomon Burke’s glory years with
Atlantic in the 60s, when he carried the
great label and forged a path that led to soul
music, the one-time “Wonder Boy Preacher”
from Philadelphia brought the gospel spirit
into his secular music with a fervor matched
only by Sam Cooke and Ray Charles. In his
expressive, multitextured vocalizing was the
sound of the church and the street, and in
his emotional investment was the eternal
struggle between the flesh and the devil. His
first Atlantic hit was a cover of a country
ballad, “Just Out of Reach,” so this sojourn
to Nashville is a figurative homecoming.
The church and the street, the flesh and the
Devil, and the heart’s deepest yearnings are
all in play—sometimes all in the same tune—
on this tour de force of quintessential soul
dramaturgy in song, writ large by a largerthan-life
character.
The music comes from the likes of
Bruce Springsteen, Don Williams, Tom
T. Hall, Dolly Parton, George Jones, Jim
Lauderdale, and Paul Kennerly; and the cast
includes the E Street Band’s Garry Tallent,
Willie Nelson’s indomitable harmonica
man Mickey Raphael, roots masters Byron
House and Sam Bush, and lap steel/pedal
steel/dobro giant Al Perkins. Parton is
formidable in shadowing Burke as he turns
her “Tomorrow Is Forever” into a hymn
of invitation. Emmylou Harris is a ghostly
presence in turning George Jones’ “We’re
Gonna Hold On” into a moment of dread
and foreboding. But in the end it is the
King who burns, whether he’s working a
deep country-blues take on a stripped-down
reconsideration of Hall’s “That’s How I Got
To Memphis” or being wickedly ironic in
his sly kiss-off of a lover who dumped him
during Williams’ “Atta Way To Go.”
In judiciously casting string sections and
full-on bands populated by players both
sympathetic and empathetic when it comes
to walking the thin line between country and
R&B, and masterfully blending acoustic and
electric textures in the soundscape, producer
Buddy Miller presents Burke in the best
possible settings to bring out the richness
of his crooning and electrifying brio of his
gospel petitioning. They don’t often make
’em like this anymore, but they made this
one, and it’s a quite a moment. DM
Further Listening: Various: Night
Train To Nashville: Music City
Rhythm & Blues, 1949-1970;
Various: White Man’s Blues
Lupe Fiasco: Lupe
Fiasco’s Food &
Liquor.
Soundtrakk, Prolyfic, The Neptunes,
Mike Shinoda, Kanye West, et al.,
producers. Atlantic 83960.
Hip-hop fans are in such need for artists that
have some substance to offer that they’re
often quick to embrace any up-and-coming
MC who isn’t mindlessly rapping about
drugs, guns, and sex. So it’s no surprise that
talented lyricist Lupe Fiasco has been thrust