Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble
SRV
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SRV breaks out of the gate with Little Stevie Vaughan before he was Stevie Ray. A member of Paul Ray and the Cobras, the kid's doing "Thunderbird"—the upbeat, swinging standard by the Nightcaps, Texas' first great white-boy blues band—a song that every Dallas kid with an electric guitar and an attitude knew by heart. The voice is already full-formed, deep and bluesy. The instrumental prowess, in terms of tone, technique, and attack, is already over the heads of his bandmates. And so begins a long evolution, detailed by the low-down and dirty reading of "I'm Crying," from Vaughan's first recording session with Double Trouble, followed by a full-throttle shuffle, "You're Gonna Miss Me Baby" and 51 other tracks. Most of the songs on this three-CD set are unissued alternate studio takes or live performances. Rarer gems like "Rude Mood/Pipeline" performed with brother Jimmie for MTV and three songs from Vaughan's last gig, at Wisconsin's Alpine Valley, are worth the price of admission alone. Taken as a whole, it is even better—a remarkable body of work. So if earlier recordings Vaughan made as half of Blackbird with Christian-Charles de Plique or as part of the Nightcrawlers with Doyle Bramhall and Marc Benno in the early seventies are missing (or even "Let's Dance," the song and guitar break that made David Bowie's career), it's a minor complaint. What's important is that the box set captures Stevie Ray Vaughan in full blazing glory, locked into that sweet spot where he could soak up roots, tradition, and soul the way he did so well and then take all that to the next level. Ten years after he died, it's clearer than ever: SRV was in a different zone. Texas guitar will never sound the same.
Susie Ibarra
Flower After Flower
tzadik
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As a female jazz percussionist and bandleader, Susie Ibarra remains a rarity in the male-dominated world of jazz instrumentalists. Raised in Houston's small Filipino community, Ibarra found the strength to overcome inequities and used that determination to become a fixture in New York's Downtown jazz scene. The propulsive fury displayed in her stint with the David S. Ware Quartet dispelled even the most gender-biased doubters, yet Ibarra's own work finds a spatial and introspective tone.
Flower After Flower has as much in common with modern composition as it does with avant-garde jazz, and the balance forms a work of striking beauty. The supporting cast is equally remarkable: Wadada Leo Smith's trumpet finds an almost spiritual muse, and Cooper-Moore's brittle piano work follows suit. Clarinetists Chris Speed and Assif Tsahar weave with Ibarra to complement the "deep listening" techniques of accordionist Pauline Oliveros. And while Ibarra gives herself plenty of solo time, she eschews the showboating that usually mars drummer-led ensembles. Given the room to breathe, her music is all the richer for it.
Frisco Mabel Joy Revisited: For Mickey Newbury
appleseed recordings
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A songwriter's songwriter and a cult figure's cult figure, Houston's Mickey Newbury authored pop and country hits in the late sixties and early seventies, among them "Sweet Memories" and the Elvis Presley stalwart "An American Trilogy." He's the sort of artist Texas produces as naturally as oil or running backs. But Newbury is not as renowned as his late friend Townes Van Zandt nor does he have the brooding hipster cred of Lee Hazlewood. In other words, the man deserves a tribute record. Produced by Peter Blackstock, the Austin-bred editor of
No Depression magazine, and Chris Eckman of Seattle's Walkabouts,
Frisco Mabel Joy Revisited takes on Newbury's 1971 solo album cut by cut, resulting in a fresh, graceful experience. Newbury's songwriting allows for a variety of interpretations, from Dave Alvin's roadhouse swing through "Mobile Blue" to Midnight Choir's spookily passionate "An American Trilogy." David Halley, Michael Fracasso, and Kris Kristofferson compose some of the home-state contingent, with the kicker being a hootenanny version of "How I Love Them Old Songs," recorded by, among others, Bob Neuwirth, Mambo John Treanor, and members of the Gourds and the Old 97's.
Susan Alcorn
Uma
loveletter
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Buy this at Waterloo Records
East meets country and western, and a whole lot more, on this Houston pedal-steel guitarist's debut solo album. As a member of Eugene Chadbourne's Ernest Tubb Memorial Band, Alcorn plays little that's recognizable as country or alt-country. The eight improvisational instrumentals on
Uma pursue that exploratory spirit without sounding much like Chadbourne either. Instead, Alcorn draws on droning Indian ragas for "Uma's River Song of Love" and "The Royal Road/ Shambhala." "Dancing" skips along on a series of hypnotic, repetitive phrases, and the funereal "Kalimankou Denkou/ Thrace" progresses through sweet sitarlike whines, lilting passages, and harplike phrasing. "Monk Medley" opens bluesy ("Crepuscle for Nellie"), turns hard-bop ("Pannonica"), and soars out ("Groovin' High") before the album closes with a tantalizing snatch of "Amazing Grace." Alcorn doesn't ignore the melancholy mood that her instrument brings to country but applies elements of world music, jazz, avant-classical, and New Age to create sounds that defy classification.
Beaver Nelson
Little Brother
black dog
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Austin's Beaver Nelson has never been at a loss for songs, just for albums to put them on. By his mid-twenties he had lost his next-big-thing glow by twice signing record deals that failed to yield records, though the bulk of his fans (critics and fellow musicians) would have gotten theirs free anyway. By the time 1998's
Last Hurrah finally broke the cycle of false starts, a now-or-never vitality had added urgent texture to both gritty rock and disheartening balladry. The production is a bit fuller and Nelson's vocals slightly more confident on the follow-up,
Little Brother, but the narratives are just as compelling; alternating waves of swagger, torment, and blooze provide for a set without an underwritten song. Best of all, the stripped-down urgency lingers. "Remnant" and "My Bones Will Be the Picture Frame" are delivered as if they were Nelson's last hurrah. At just 29, it shouldn't be.
