BergALERT

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Playing together for over 40 years now without any band member changes, Los Lobos is still going strong. Very strong. With family ties to Watsonville, this East LA band remains a perennial Monterey Bay favorite with an upcoming 2 night local appearance in October. Gates of Gold is their latest album and their 22^nd. On this one, The wolves recall their guitar fueled Slash Records days and strike another golden bullseye kicking off with the first track, “Made to Break Your Heart”.

Contemplating life

Gates of Gold finds Lobos guitarists David Hidalgo, Cesar Rojas, and Louie Perez in superb form, leading bassist Conrad Lozano and sax-keyboard player Steve Berlin down very familiar roads with inspired energy, wicked guitar playing and a lot of brotherly love. The title track sets the theme for the entire album. The band members who are now in their early 60’s are pondering what’s behind those Golden Gates as well as reminiscing about their past – “When We Were Free”- and looking to the future, “Gates of Gold”.
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On his latest album, “The Monsanto Years”, Neil Young, is angry. Really angry.  He’s unleashed a fiery burst of rock n roll fury aimed squarely at box stores, corporate farming and ag chemical use.

For the most part the premise works, but Neil does stretches his credibility with a few “you can see it coming” groaners like rhyming “GMO” with “Monsanto” on the whistling-snappy “A Rock Star Bucks A Coffee Shop”. How’s that for a title?

Nelson Brothers Rock

Young, who will be turning 70 this year, has long championed the family farmer and protested the use of GMOs, donating money to various causes and years of gratis performances at Willie Nelson’s Farm Aid concerts. Young’s new five piece backup band is called Promise of the Real, featuring guitar singer brothers, Lukas and Micah Nelson, sons of Willie. These young’ns are the perfect foil for Young’s style of frenzied guitar grunge and sense of urgency. The Promise certainly seems to be drinking their elder’s kool aid because they rock every bit as solid as Young’s old band Crazy Horse and seem just as upset about these earthly matters.

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Will Butler is the lead guitarist for Montreal’s indie rock band Arcade Fire and the younger brother of the lead singer.  The guitarist has just released his first solo effort “Policy” and it’s a slam dunk, innovative breath of rock n roll fresh air. A short, but jam packed  28 minutes of exhilarating, humorous, quirky pop and gospel tinged tunes.

A multi-instrumentalist who can play just about anything, the thirty something Butler recorded “Policy” aided by only a single drummer, two saxophonists and a set of great background singers that include his wife, Jenny. Butler claims the policy of this album reflects his broad musical tastes, which appear to be all over the place as evidenced by “Anna”.

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Seems like every time I go grocery shopping, classic rock tunes segue down the aisles from above. Everything from Elvis to Nirvana as well as last week’s Lady Gaga. Songs we shoppers are way too familiar with. There I was perusing the locally grown organic broccoli when “Wooly Bully” lit up the vegetable department and my cart started a rock’n and rollin’.

Huge Smash

Written and performed by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs, “Wooly Bully” was a worldwide smash in 1965. Recorded by Sun Studios founder, Sam Phillips in Memphis, the song spent 14 weeks on the US top 40 charts despite overall domination by what was then called the “British music invasion”.”Wooly Bully” was named “Single of the Year” by Billboard Magazine and was the title of the Pharaoh’s first full-length record and the opening track.  So… what about the rest of it album? Listen to my audio piece at the top of this article and find out.

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April marked the centenary of jazz singer and cultural legend, Billie Holiday, so it’s no surprise there’s been a steady parade of new compilation and tribute albums released since the beginning of this year. One in particular stands above the rest because it dares to be different. It’s Cassandra Wilson’s new one titled Coming Forth by Day.

Blue Mood

The first track, “Don’t Explain” sets the melancholy mood that meanders throughout Wilson’s channeling of Holiday all the way to the final cut on Coming Forth By Day. The blue light is definitely on. On the first listening, I imagined myself wandering thru an alleyway back door into some smoke filled jazz joint and There’s Lady Day herself lost in a vocal haze, backed by a group of present day rock and jazz musicians that sounds so now.

Many listens and days later, I finally got around to reading the album’s liner notes by music author, Ashley Kahn. He had the exact same reaction.

Holiday Re-Imaged

This is Billy Holiday re-imaged. On Coming Forth By Day, Wilson has taken an edgy, updated approach in collaboration with producer Nick Launay who’s works with rock groups Nick Cave and The Seeds and Arcade Fire. It’s Launay who created this album’s almost surreal sonic atmosphere of dark shadows and blue moods that compliment Wilson’s subdued but husky delivery. An eerie clarinet snakes in here and there, slide electric guitars mix with traditional sax and piano, digital loops and effects highlight tones and clever string arrangements by non other than Van Dyke Parks ( on“You Go To My Head”) further expand this back to the future jazz project.

It’s to Wilson’s credit that she has so successfully succeeded at crawling inside Billie’s head to breathe new life into these thoroughly modern reinterpretations of 11 familiar songs we think we know so well.  Her stark delivery of the lyrics make them sink in as if we are hearing them for the first time.

Cohesive Tribute

Coming Forth by Day ends with an original piece that Wilson and her band members composed called “Last Song For Lester”.  It’s words Billie Holiday might have sung in tribute at the funeral of her longtime mentor and musical pal, saxophonist Lester Young, whose family banned the jazz singer from attending.  The lyrics of which are just one of many things that make Wilson’s contemporary and cohesive tribute to Lady Day on Coming Forth so revealing. - Eric Berg

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Rhiannon Giddens, lead singer and a founding member of the Grammy winning string band, Carolina Chocolate Drops, has just released her first solo album called “Tomorrow Is My Turn”.  It’s an impressive vocal tour de force that shows off Gidden’s superlative voice and extensive range.

Her rendition of  “Waterboy  floored the audience with in 2013 at the “Another Day, Another Time” folk concert honoring the Cohen Bros movie “Inside Lewyn Davis”.  Giddens caught the ear of T-Bone Burnett who asked to record with her and produced “Tomorrow Is My Turn” which features her percussive but strikingly updated version of “Waterboy”, a song most famously associated with Odetta.

Operatic background

Giddens , a classically trained opera singer seems quite at ease covering all genres of music. For this album, she purposely chose tracks that didn’t fit the Chocolate Drops’ M.O. picking out songs written or at least interpreted by women singer who inspired her like Elizabeth Cotton, Nina Simone, Patsy Cline. Her version of Dolly Parton’s “Don’t Let It Trouble Your Mind” is absolutely stunning and so is her gospel prowess on Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s “Up Above My Head”.

The group of musicians Burnett picked to back Giddens on “Tomorrow Is My Turn” are also outstanding, notably fiddle player Gabe Witcher from the Punch Brothers. Chocolate Drop bandmates Hubby Jenkins and Adam Matta are also present.  The only fully composed song  is the self revealing “Angel City” penned by Giddens that gives closes the album.

Future bodes well

Rhiannon Giddens debut “Tomorrow Is My Turn” shows she has a voice to be reckoned with and the potential to become a legendary singer in her own right.  Can’t wait to see what Giddens does next. – Eric Berg

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The Sonics with  Barrence Whitfield and the Savages play The Fillmore in San Francisco on Friday, May 8th.

It’s been 50 plus years since a young teenage guitarist Larry Parypa and brother Andy started Tacoma’s legendary proto-garage band, the Sonics, in the family living room. And they have inspired endless punk and garage bands ever since. Now it’s 2015 and the group is back in action going full throttle with all amps cranked to 11 on their new album, called “This Is the Sonics”. Recorded in gorgeous mono that demands to be played loud, the Sonics blast through 12 tracks of high energy, hard edged rock n roll in a quick 34 minutes.

No Doctors Needed.

To prove they mean business, the five Sonics blast off starting with the first track, a kick ass cover of “I Don’t Need No Doctor”, a clever start to the band’s first new record in 4 decades. These senior citizen thrash rockers, who are now in their late 60’s-early 70’s, certainly sound like they don’t need one.

It wasn’t until lead singer and keyboardist Jerry Roslie joined the popular Pacific Northwest band in 1964 that the Sonics burst upon the scene with their first album  “Here are the Sonics’’  that featured fired up teen-age hits like “Psycho”, “The Witch”, “Boss Hog” and “Strychnine”.

Current Lineup

Many players have come and gone in the Sonics over the last 50 years but three original members of the are still in the current incarnation of the band’s five man lineup. Rob Lind, the Sonics’ wildman on bleating sax and harmonica, is up front and present on every track. Larry Parypa’s lightning bolt guitar sounds better than ever thanks to the great mix, and singer Jerry Roslie bellows out vocals like it was 1964 all over again. They absolutely shred on the old Kink’s tune, “The Hard Way”.  Never thought I’d consider asking a bunch of senior citizens to turn it down a notch.

Since 2008, the three Sonics have been joined by drummer Dusty Hill, who’s played with Agent Orange, Dick Dale, The Supersuckers just to mention a few, and Freddie Dennis on bass and vocals.

Relentless Rock n Roll

“This Is the Sonics” is welcome, relentless rock n roll, loud from beginning to end. That’s what makes album so much fun. Today’s Sonics play with so much urgency and vitality, it’s astonishing as well as invigorating.  A lot of today’s young bands could learn a thing or two from these guys, if they haven’t already. Good to have them back. – Eric Berg

VIDEO PROOF:

The Sonics today, April 2015

The Sonics then.  Although this vid does not actually show them, it’s still killer and no filler.

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Legendary folksinger, Tom Paxton, is retiring from touring in 2015 although he still plans on making records. Paxton and fellow folksinger, Janis Ian, drop by Santa Cruz for one last time on Wednesday, April 22 at the Rio Theatre.

Last summer my 30 year-old niece mentioned that she had a great time singing with this really famous old folk singer from the 60’s at an after hours jam at the Kate Wolf Festival. Some guy she said named Tom Paxton. Had I heard of him?

“The Last Thing on My Mind” is probably one of Paxton’s most popular songs that can be found on his classic first album “Ramblin’ Boy” released in 1964.  The prolific Paxton was one of the first folksingers to write his own songs pre-Bob Dylan and performed frequently at the legendary Gaslight Café in New York’s Greenwich Village during the era that Dave Van Ronk coined The Great Folk Scare of the early 60’s. His vast catalog of songs have been recorded by hundreds of artists and he’s inspired generations of  new folk singers since.

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Fifteen years into this millennium, everything old continues to be seemly new.  Like Pokey LaFarge.

Tracks like “Wanna Be Your Man” sound like they were recorded 75 years ago with lyrics to match but believe it or not, most of the tunes here on “Something in the Water” were penned by LaFarge last year. On the cover, this 32 yr old St. Louis singer -songwriter is a dead ringer for the Clash’s Mick Jones circa ’77,  but inside, the music is a total throwback to the early jazz, ragtime and country blues of the 20’s and 30’s. Not that we haven’t heard any of this musical nostalgia before re-imagined by a host of other performers. LaFarge is a bit different because, he writes his own slightly humorous lyrics and sets them to the familiar tones and melodies made popular by Mid-West bands, pre WWII.  He’s clearly influenced by the likes of Milton Brown and his Brownies, The Mississippi Shieks , the original Skillet Lickers and Bob Wills.

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Last year marked the 50th anniversary of the Who. 2015 finds the band’s original founders, guitarist Pete Townshend and singer Roger Daltry, staging one last worldwide tour, but we’ve heard that before.  The Who’s final swing through the Bay Area stops in Oakland this October. This last February, all seven Townshend’s solo albums were given the deluxe treatment and re-released with bonus tracks. The real gem in this bunch is “Rough Mix”  which Townshend recorded with the late Ronnie Lane in 1977.

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