Joe Ely
Live at Antone's
Rounder
It’s the beginning of a new decade, so like clockwork, it must be time for a new Joe Ely live album. Live Shots (1980) chronicled his tour with the Clash; Live At Liberty Lunch (1990) was a career snapshot that captured the power of his performances. Live At Antone’s, a collection of fifteen tracks recorded in January 1999, features a crack band, great sound, and a healthy dose of songs from his albums over the past few years. The trio of tunes from 1995’s Letter To Laredo are stunning, especially his take on Tom Russell’s “Gallo Del Cielo,” which slowly builds to a climax in seven minutes as Teye’s peppery flamenco guitar and Lloyd Maines’ steel guitar blur the lines between Spain and West Texas. Longtime Ely guitarist Jesse Taylor shines throughout, particularly on the chestnut “Road Hawg” and the newer “Workin’ For The Man” and “Up On The Ridge.” The surprising Tex-Mex rendition of Buddy Holly’s “Oh, Boy” ends the set, and Taylor and Joel Guzman (from Los Super Seven) engage in a guitar-accordion duel. The band is a veritable powerhouse, but it’s clear who’s the ringmaster, and he’s there to convince you that, yes, the world does need another Joe Ely live album.
Terri Hendrix
Places in Between
Wilory Records
Visualize Sheryl Crow in overalls, or maybe Ani Difranco with a down-home Texas perspective: that’s Terri Hendrix, the singer-songwriter-entrepreneur-czarina, in a nutshell. Born and raised in San Antonio and now living in San Marcos, Hendrix is a walking advertisement for sunny confidence and boundless enthusiasm, qualities that she’s been polishing along with her bright, sassy vocals and accomplished guitar playing over the course of three albums. Places in Between demonstrates how she’s taken those talents one step further, exuding an innate sense of street smarts and a keen eye for detail on all fifteen tracks, particularly “It’s a Given” and “Places in Between”—tunes that are simultaneously intimate and universal, telling stories that hold a listener even when the melody might not. Besides, how can you not love a singer who pines for a flush toilet and central air in her dream home, as she does on “My Own Place”? To pull that off suggests quite a career in the making. Keep your eyes and ears open as she whizzes past..
Ervin Charles
Greyhound Blues
Dialtone
If not for this CD, which was recorded last year, most Texans would never have been aware of Beaumont’s Ervin Charles, who died on April 1 at age 68 with little more than two credits on 1999’s Lone Star Shootout CD to show for a storied, fifty-year career. The ferocious blast of guitar and harp (by producer Paul Orta) that kicks off “So Mean To Me” proves that Ervin meant to remedy that. His brash attack and biting tone move effortlessly from the mathematical precision of B. B. King to the cold, hard edge of Albert Collins. He sings with vulnerability and resolve, adding throaty gasps, grunts, and groans that ride the rhythm or answer his guitar gleefully. Though seventies bandmate Richard Earl sings four tracks, Ervin remains the undisputed star, injecting his snaky guitar into the ballad “All I Want Is You,” adding nagging filler licks to his rolling lines on “Sweet Woman’s Love,” and building the Hookeresque “Gulf Coast Boogie” with his rhythm chops and swampy timbre before departing with the textured shuffle “Change Your Way.” Ervin, we hardly knew ye.
Centro-matic
All the Falsest Hearts Can Try
Quality Park Records
If you haven’t heard of Centro-matic, it’s certainly not for lack of effort on the group’s part. All the Falsest Hearts Can Try is the Denton band’s third CD in little more than a year; it dates back to a 1998 recording session that produced more than sixty songs, completing a triptych that includes March 1999’s Navigation and August 1999’s The Static vs. the Strings Vol. I. Will Johnson, formerly the drummer for the Dallas buzz band Funland, started Centro-matic in 1995 as a lo-fi solo project. Home-studio inspiration still figures into his modus operandi, but these days Centro-matic is a working four-piece that has moved beyond early influences like Pavement and Sebadoh. Its indie-rock allegiances remain strong enough that many songs here are actually oblique, bittersweet meditations on the mythology of those allegiances. But the band’s garage-pop also has a raggedly ornate quality, largely because of violinist-pianist Scott Danbom. Meanwhile, Johnson’s Texas rasp adds an alt-country feel to the elemental ballad “Gas Blowin’ Out of Our Eyes” and the understated rock epic “Members of the Show ‘Em How It’s Done,” which offers up lovely harmonies and gently picked guitars with perfect grace and clarity. Bubblegum hooks and buzzy-sweet guitar riffs are still the meat of the Centro-matic experience, and if the giddy “Hercules Now!” only proves that Johnson can still be Guided by Voices when he feels like it, the bright energy and deft musicality of “Huge in Every City” and “Most Everyone Will Find” suggest he’s creeping toward a pop fabulism more on the order of Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy. Wilco didn’t truly blossom until it made a double album, so let’s give Centro-matic a little time — like, oh, maybe six months.
Elliott Smith
Figure 8
Dreamworks
In recent years Elliott Smith has owned up to his fear of playing the kind of music he wanted. A bit of a mope, Smith avoids discussing his Dallas boyhood and has veiled much of his earlier work in an obtuse cloud of hipness, resulting in pop Chinese food. Yet armed with the same production team from 1998’s XO, Figure 8 lifts the gauze to expose some bare emotion. Smith’s considerable melodic gifts may still be the star of the show, but the anger of “Easy Way Out,” The false bravado of “Somebody That I Used To Know,” and the pain of “Everything Reminds Me Of Her” hog the spotlight. A few attempts to make Smith rock—he just doesn’t&—fall flat, but as one of the most talented of only a handful of major label artists working in pop music, it’s gratifying to see him reaching out. He has the right role models; his admiration of Smokey Robinson’s universal appeal is no secret. After hearing Figure 8, who wouldn’t second that emotion?
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