// Category Archive for: Music Reviews

Music Review: Pokey LaFarge, Pokey LaFarge

By Melissa Bratcher

Pokey LaFarge is a great addition to Jack White’s Third Man Records roster. His debut album for the label, Pokey LaFarge, is a rootsy, charming collection of tidy songs (only one is over four minutes long) that is terrifically listenable.

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Music Review: Doris, Did You Give The World Some Love Today, Baby (Expanded Edition)

By Melissa Bratcher

Issued only in Sweden in 1970, Doris’s second album Did You Give The World Some Love Today, Baby is an overlooked gem. It’s a mix of jazz, pop, country, and psychedelia, all percolated together and topped with a singer who has great range and charm. I had put this album on my iPod when it arrived, and when a song would pop up on random play, I’d think, “Oooh, this is interesting,” but it has to be listened to as a whole. Did You Give The World Some Love Today, Baby is mind-blowing and brilliant. It was intended to introduce Doris to English speaking audiences, but it tanked, which is a terrible shame. Newly remastered here, it is absolutely worth listening to.

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Music Review: King Tuff, Was Dead

By Less Lee Moore

Burger Records is synonymous with fun. The last two releases from the label I reviewed were incredibly fun and their reissue of King Tuff’s Was Dead is no exception.

Originally released in 2008 on Tee Pee Records as a limited edition on vinyl only, Was Dead was out of print for several years before this reissue. Fans who missed out will be overjoyed while those who haven’t yet dipped their toes into King Tuff’s pool party are in for a treat.

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Music Review: Hot Club Of Cowton, Rendezvous In Rhythm

By Chelsea Spear

The cover drew me in.

The playful sleeve art for Rendezvous in Rhythm spoke to the part of me that loves flappers and circuses. I loved the hand painted, Belle Epoque-esque lettering, the trompe l’oeil circus tents, and the doleful corgi. The men and woman of Hot Club of Cowtown looked as though they’d stepped out of a 1930s musical, the gentlemen in natty suits and ties and the lady clad in a silver dress worthy of Clara Bow. Reading the description of the Hot Club’s sound put me in mind of my beloved Pink Martini, who has likewise reinvented early 20th century music for a contemporary audience, and I anticipated discovering a new band with a classic sound.

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Music Review: Davell Crawford, My Gift To You

By Melissa Bratcher

I don’t know that I’ve ever been brought to tears by a piano piece. Davell Crawford has changed that. On his intensely personal album My Gift To You, the “Piano Prince of New Orleans” lives up to his nickname, and his performance of “Southern Nights/Many Rivers To Cross,” the marriage of an Allen Toussaint song to a Jimmy Cliff song, is transcendent. I cried. It felt like a gift to hear it.

Davell Crawford hadn’t released an album in 13 years. It must have been time well spent, because My Gift To You is simply extraordinary. He changes effortlessly between styles; jazz, funk, Louisiana low country music, and does it all so well. He surrounds himself with a who’s who of contemporary New Orleans musicians. The liner notes alone are worth the price of the record—they are witty and interesting, and give even more insight into the clever Mr. Crawford.

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Music Review: Iggy and The Stooges, Ready To Die

By Less Lee Moore

Every time I write a review of something Iggy Pop or Stooges-related, I feel obligated to provide some sort of context, to explain why these old dudes are still important to me and why they should be important to everyone else. With Ready To Die, the latest from Iggy and The Stooges, I’m not sure that context is needed. It’s just that good of an album. Besides, if you haven’t liked Iggy’s or The Stooges’ music over the last four decades, there’s probably no hope for you, anyway.

Although Iggy himself is fairly prolific, actual Stooges albums are scarce, which makes their legendary status all the more impressive. This particular incarnation of the band includes Iggy, Scott Asheton on drums, James Williamson on guitar, Steve Mackay on sax, and Mike Watt on bass. (Frequent Stooges auxiliary member Scott Thurston also appears on a track.) With the untimely, much-lamented death of Scott’s brother Ron in 2009, this is as close to a bona fide reunion as we’re going to get now.

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Music Review: Marty Robbins: The Legend/Come Back To Me (Reissue)

By Melissa Bratcher

You’ve got to love a guy who explains the title of his album The Legend this way: “What I wanted was Super Legend, but they didn’t go along with it, so it’s just The Legend.” Released for the first time on CD, Marty Robbins’s 1981 album of that modest title has been paired with his 1982 record, Come Back To Me.

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Music Review: Dead Ghosts, Can’t Get No

By Less Lee Moore

If you think Dead Ghosts sounds like a Goth band name, you’d be right, but you’d be dead wrong about their sound. This is old school, straight-up party music. The only thing better than listening to this album at a party (nighttime, outside, backyard, torches to ward off mosquitoes) would be having the band actually play live at your party.

In other words, you have to dance to this music. There is no other way.

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Music Review: Burnt Ones, You’ll Never Walk Alone

By Less Lee Moore

You’ll Never Walk Alone opens with the wonderfully titled, warped shimmy of “Glitter Death” and the clever lyric: tell all of your friends that this is the end/of all these stupid trends.

The first six tracks on the album weave in and out of each other so slyly they all seem like one glorious, extended song. A song that’s a three-dimensional rainbow tapestry of sonic bliss.

Burnt Ones recalls the psychedelia of both early Pink Floyd and T. Rex with more than a dusting of the latter’s primo glam rawk stomp, and lyrics to match (sample: Just like a sweater how you’re so together). At first those lyrics won’t make a whole lot of sense, but once you get into their groove, the crazy visuals they describe—”hypnotized and fried, licking glass perfumes”–will nag at you until you start to feel like you understand on some subterranean, emotional level.

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Music Review: Marty Robbins, El Paso City/Adios Amigo (Reissue)

By Melissa Bratcher

I’m a nostalgist. What I love about reissues is hearing a song I’ve forgotten entirely about. In a beat, I’m transported to the back-backseat of my parents’ station wagon, listening to KTTS on the radio. The reissue of Marty Robbins’s El Paso City/Adios Amigo took me right back to that station wagon.

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