Jeff McCord on the month’s new releases
Alejandro Escovedo
Real Animal
Can the Alejandro Escovedo who couched his earlier songs in a fog of romantic imagery be the same one spelling things out on the autobiographical Real Animal (Back Porch/Manhattan)? The San Antonio–born singer, an inveterate rocker who writes tender ballads like “Slow Down,” has always been a study in contradictions. A near-fatal bout with hepatitis C in 2002 hardly slowed him down, but Escovedo has found a new lust for life—a life his latest album now celebrates. The conceit may be self-serving, yet Escovedo and writing partner Chuck Prophet (whose stylistic impact is clear), along with producer Tony Visconti (whose work with David Bowie and T. Rex influenced a younger Escovedo), have made what is first and foremost a thrilling rock record. With a richer, glossier sound, the music soars. Pay close attention, though, and there they are: songs about family and former bands, rampant Iggy Pop worship, and tales of regret fused with furious rave-ups. Maudlin? Never. Disjointed? Maybe, but as an ironic Escovedo himself notes in “Chelsea Hotel ’78,” it somehow all makes perfect sense.
Eliza Gilkyson
Beautiful World
Red House
Her lilting voice is a half whisper, her words evocative. At the top of her game, Austinite Eliza Gilkyson adds to her remarkable string of successes with Beautiful World (Red House). Musically, Gilkyson is expanding her palate beyond the usual singer-songwriter fare, leading musicians Mike Hardwick, Cindy Cashdollar, and brother Tony (among others) through a variety of enticing new flavors. Some of these are surprises, like the jazzy “Unsustainable” and the rocker “Dream Lover.” Then there’s “Emerald Street,” which finds Gilkyson fiddling while Rome burns; its peculiar and wondrous optimism somehow bolsters the album’s gritty worldview. The title track echoes this sentiment, the world’s beauty “setting the stage for the folly of man.” Elsewhere, Gilkyson tackles folly head-on. “The Party’s Over” is one last jab at the current administration, and if the metaphor for “Runaway Train” is a bit obvious, then “Great Correction” artfully sums things up: “It’s the bitter end we’ve come down to / The eye of the needle that we gotta get through / But the end could be the start of something new / When the great correction comes.”
Grupo Fantasma
Sonidos Gold
Aire Sol/High Wire
As big years go, Grupo Fantasma has had one of the biggest: Austin’s eleven-piece combo played festivals across the country, appeared on national TV, and even struck up an alliance with Prince. Now comes a fourth CD, Sonidos Gold (Aire Sol/High Wire). Though the album scores appearances from the likes of saxophonist Maceo Parker and Fania All-Stars’ Larry Harlow, Grupo keeps its modest but effective foot-moving formula intact. Harlow is a particular coup; Fania’s genre-bending sixties and seventies excursions made an impression on Grupo, whose members now effortlessly roll cumbia, Afrobeat, salsa, and funk into a propulsive machine. (They straddle eras too, with modern dub, psychedelic flourishes, and DJ remixes.) Despite taut arrangements, Gold sounds wide open, almost live; it suits a band whose music seems born for the stage. And if that weren’t enough, don’t miss the superb sounds from new Grupo spin-offs: Homenaje (Freestyle), instrumental funk from the band’s subgroup Brownout, and The Alchemist Manifesto (ESL), guitarist Adrian Quesada’s freaky collaboration with Ocote Soul Sounds.
Frankie Miller
The Victoria-born country star, now 77, had a stellar career in the fifties and sixties that is all but forgotten. His emergence from retirement, along with the newly released deluxe box set Blackland Farmer: The Complete Starday Recordings, and More (Bear Family), may just change that.
You landed your first recording contract at nineteen. How did those early records fare?
They weren’t very successful, but they got me in the business. I was big on all the jukeboxes in Victoria and Calhoun County.
But 1959’s Blackland Farmer found you real success.
Yeah, it was an unusual record. I wrote that song for an old uncle of mine in South Texas. He was a farmer all of his life. It put me in the country music business big-time.
You recorded so many great sides for Starday but later quit at the height of your career. How come?
I was very tired, sick of the road and being gone from my family. We’d travel in cars, with shows four hundred miles apart. I said, “I’m going home.” I didn’t do anything in the business for 25, 30 years. Now I see George [Jones] every so often—we went many miles together—and we’ll sit on his bus and talk. Now with buses and all—that’s the way to go. (Read the full interview.)
