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Blues | By Frank-John Hadley
Dana Gillespie
Droning And Waking The Dead
Dana Gillespie: I Rest My Case (Ace 1279;
64:14 HHH½) Dana Gillespie is one of the
best blues singers in Great Britain. On her seventh
album for Ace, she provocatively braids
together lovesickness, sensuality and a strong
sense of selfhood in grown-up, carefully paced
tunes of considerable merit that she wrote herself.
A master of rhythmic subtleties with purity
of intent, Gillespie leads her quietly exuberant
band (despite occasional bouts of blandness)
to the emotional center of “Guilty As Hell” and
a dozen more.
Ordering info: acerecords.com
Coyote Poets Of The Universe: Pandora’s
Box (Square Shaped 0105; 60:18
HHH½) These nine musicians, offering all
original tunes on their fifth album, might be
graduates of Ken Kesey’s Acid Tests of the
mid-’60s who have been transported across
time to the present. Along the way, they picked
up influences ranging from globalists Paul
Horn and Oregon to adventurous rock bands
It’s a Beautiful Day and Joy of Cooking to Ken
Nordine’s word-jazz. Keeping listeners off
guard, the Denver-based Coyote Poets loosely
fit the contemporary jam-band mold even as
“Blood & Bones” and “Quittin’ Time” rumble
with a blues heft unattainable to many conventional
blues bands.
Ordering info: coyotepoetsoftheuniverse.com
Various Artists: North Mississippi Hill
Country Picnic, Volume II (Devil Down;
69:24 HH½) Guitarist Kenny Brown’s event
salutes Junior Kimbrough and R. L. Burnside,
the past giants of droning, galvanic singlechord
blues. Highlights of the 2010 Southern
picnic are Reverend John Wilkins playing “You
Got To Move,” which hits concert-goers hard,
like an intravenous injection of pure M.S.G.,
and Alvin Youngblood Hart & Muscle Theory
taking no prisoners in a boogie rage called “Big
Mama’s Door.”
Ordering info: devildownrecords.com
Henry Gray: Lucky Man (Blind Pig
8013; 35:47 HHH) Originally released in
1990, this reissue finds the respected Chicago
bluesman—he was employed by Howlin’
Wolf—thumping the piano keys on his own
boogies and on venerable perennials of Chicago
or New Orleans origins. Henry Gray’s
singing wavers some but it never lacks for
authenticity.
Ordering info: blindpigrecords.com
Amde Ardoin: Mama, I’ll Be Long
Gone (Tompkins Square 2554; 52:47/52:07
HHHH½) Andre Ardoin’s pained, high-register
singing to a lost sweetheart and his assured
performances on accordion are the glowing
hearts of 34 tracks that this paterfamilias of
southern Louisiana music performed between
1929 and 1934—his entire recorded output,
now painstakingly remastered by archivist
Christopher King. The tortured yelling by Ardoin
in “La Valse Ah Abe” can wake the dead.
Many of these Afro-Creole blues and dance
tunes, it should be noted, are further elevated
in their stark, timeless magnificence by the fiddling
of Dennis McGhee. Unfortunately, the accompanying
booklet lacks English translations
of the French lyrics.
Ordering info: tompkinssquare.com
Grayson Capps: The Lost Cause Minstrels
(The Royal Potato Family 1107; 44:38
HHH½) Grayson Capps’ fifth record marks his
arrival as a premier exponent of Southern roots
music—those white guys tirelessly entertaining
in blues joints and country honky-tonks.
This Alabaman has the deep, pliable voice, the
songwriting smarts and the air of confidence
needed to put over his hard-hitting blues-rock
(“John The Dagger”), his updating of a number
from early-20th century songster Rabbit
Brown (“Jane’s Alley Blues”) and his own version
of swinging, jazz-heated Gulf Coast fun
(“Coconut Moonshine”). DB
Ordering info: graysoncapps.com
JORG Huber
Madeleine Peyroux
Standing On The Rooftop
Decca 5636
HHH
It has taken Madeleine Peyroux at least 15
years and six albums to fully develop her musical
personality, to branch out into the mature
artist on Standing On The Rooftop. Unlike the
intimate jazz-combo readings of standards on
her first albums, Peyroux embraces a more popular,
bluesy music on the new disc. Supported
by an excellent rhythm section that can deftly
navigate between genres—pianist Allen
Toussaint and bassist Meshell Ndegeocello
form the core of the group—Peyroux has developed
a new compositional and vocal approach.
Her original tunes include the shimmering,
stripped-down New Orleans funk of “The
Kind You Can’t Afford,” which was co-written
with Bill Wyman, and the plodding, ephemeral
“Standing On The Rooftop.” On these songs,
Peyroux’s voice is front and center, adapting
to the textural changes and mood swings within
each tune.
Cover songs outside the realm of jazz standards
can be a bit prickly for musicians.
There’s always a thin line between faithful
send-up and misguided interpretation. Peyroux
toes this line expertly with “Martha, My Dear,”
which slows down the bouncy Beatles tune
into a lament accompanied by sparse banjo
and languid acoustic guitar. Peyroux takes Bob
Dylan’s “I Threw It All Away” in the opposite
direction, speeding it up slightly and adding a
slow blues-rock groove.
The most striking feature of Standing On
The Rooftop is not the covers nor Peyroux’s original
compositions, but the transformation of her
vocal approach. She still has a residual bit of her
Billie Holiday affectation, but Peyroux’s vocals
are now weathered and have much more depth.
—Jon Ross
Standing On The Rooftop: Martha My Dear; The Kind You Can’t
Afford; The Things I’ve Seen Today; Fickle Dove; Lay Your Sleeping
Head, My Love; Standing On The Rooftop; I Threw It All Away; Love
In Vain; Don’t Pick a Fight With A Poet; Meet Me in Rio; Ophelia;
The Way of All Things. (47:09)
Personnel: Madeline Peyroux, vocals; Allen Toussaint, piano;
Meshell Ndegeocello, bass; Marc Ribot, Chris Bruce, guitar; Charely
Drayton, drums.
Ordering info: decca.com
52 DOWNBEAT SEPTEMBER 2011