http://www.first-media.com/index.php/archive/ en First Media Communications, Inc. Copyright 2010 2010-12-15T21:35:52+00:00 http://www.first-media.com/index.php/archive/slaid_cleaves/ http://www.first-media.com/index.php/archive/slaid_cleaves/#When:21:35:52Z “It’s a bitter wind / in your face every day / It’s the little sins / That wear your soul away,” sings Slaid Cleaves on "One Good Year," and those lines capture the Austin-based singer/songwriter’s world view in a nutshell.  Like his subjects, Cleaves has strived against long odds, but unlike most of them he's tasted his share of success.   Broke Down, the follow-up to 1997’s No Angel Knows, merged Cleaves’ evocative lyrics with straightforward country folk arrangements to produce some of the best work of his career.  Cleaves has evolved into such a skilled storyteller in large measure from experience. He began busking for change on the streets while attending college in Ireland in the '80s, then formed a moderately successful rock band (the Moxie Men) after returning home to Portland, Maine.  After that band dissolved, Cleaves moved to Austin and won the prestigious Kerryville New Folk Award in 1992.  “It opened the folk door for me,” Cleaves told… 2010-12-15T21:35:52+00:00 http://www.first-media.com/index.php/archive/willie_nelson/ http://www.first-media.com/index.php/archive/willie_nelson/#When:21:25:56Z Willie’s pal, the late country songwriter Harlan Howard, once said, “Cindy Walker is the greatest country songwriter I’ve ever heard.” Willie Nelson must agree. For this album, he’s recorded a baker’s dozen of Walker’s finest, and he’s done it old school, with producer Fred Foster at the controls and instrumental backing that sounds like a classic early ‘60s album (complete with Floyd Cramer-ish piano licks and Jordanaire-style background vocals). A little about Cindy Walker. Born in Texas in 1918, she made her way to Hollywood in the early ‘40s, scoring hits with Bing Crosby. In the mid-’50s, she turned to songwriting full-time, penning tunes for Bob Wills, Ernest Tubb and Roy Orbison, among others. Walker’s approach was to write words and melody, without accompaniment. Unable to play an instrument, she enlisted her mother to provide piano backing. Every song here is a gem. “Bubbles In… 2010-12-15T21:25:56+00:00 http://www.first-media.com/index.php/archive/david_byrne/ http://www.first-media.com/index.php/archive/david_byrne/#When:21:14:59Z Former Talking Head David Byrne brings the strongest elements of his three previous solo works together with a touch of the modern on Feelings, his first release since 1994’s David Byrne.   Blending his penchant for Latin, Brazilian and African stylings with his sure-fire sensibility for pop hooks and clever, insightful lyrics, Byrne has created a lasting masterpiece.  Recorded at various locations around the world, Feelings runs the gamut from witty world-beat ("Miss America," "Daddy Go Down"), to acerbic pop ("Dance On Vaseline," "The Gates Of Paradise"), to just plain beautiful ("A Soft Seduction," "Finite=Alright").  The addition of British trip-hoppers Morcheeba adds a distinctly modern flair to several of the tracks, and should open a wider audience to the charm of this eccentric genius.  2010-12-15T21:14:59+00:00 http://www.first-media.com/index.php/archive/nanci_griffith/ http://www.first-media.com/index.php/archive/nanci_griffith/#When:21:01:29Z Rolling Stone once crowned her "the Queen of Folkabilly." Her five Grammy nominations also bear witness to her music's unaffected beauty and simple charms.  With more than a dozen outstanding albums behind her, country-folk songwriter Nanci Griffith celebrated life on the road with Blue Roses From The Moons, a sparkling collection of 14 tunes that pay tribute to her folk and rock-and-roll beginnings. "I wanted to do an album that would really capture the sound of the Blue Moon Orchestra and would mark the years we've been together as a band," says Griffith, whose highly literate lyrics and disarming vocals have won her legions of followers.   "I'd also been hearing from our fans that they'd love to have another live album, which we hadn't done since 1988, so this covers all that," she adds.  "We recorded live in the studio with almost no overdubs, and a lot of these songs are first… 2010-12-15T21:01:29+00:00 http://www.first-media.com/index.php/archive/shelby_lynne/ http://www.first-media.com/index.php/archive/shelby_lynne/#When:00:15:51Z When Entertainment Weekly announced its Best Albums of 2000, here’s what it said about Shelby Lynne: "Ten songs that transform shattered relationships and substance abuse into sweet, redemptive soul; production values so subtle that three-chord tunes morph into lush symphonies of sound; and an angelic voice with enough sex and bluesy grit to charm the devil are what make this album the runaway choice for No. 1.”   And the top honor was richly deserved. This Alabama native has distilled her life's tragedies and triumphs into a gutsy, gorgeous work of art.  When she was a teenager, Lynne watched as her father shot her mother and then turned the gun on himself, leaving her in charge of her younger sister.  With half her heart filled with a passion for music and the other half riding an adrenaline rush of rebellion, Shelby Lynne hit Nashville as an already divorced 19-year-old -- untamed and unwilling to follow country music’s… 2010-12-14T00:15:51+00:00 http://www.first-media.com/index.php/archive/jeff_beck/ http://www.first-media.com/index.php/archive/jeff_beck/#When:00:06:54Z Any fan of guitar legend Jeff Beck would have been surprised, even shocked, by rumors of Beck going "techno." Yet when the sound first caught the rock icon's ear in London dance clubs in the late '90s, in the percussive thrust of Prodigy and Fatboy Slim, he soon began plotting his own variation on a techno theme. Perhaps remarkably, the result became 1999's Grammy-nominated Who Else.   What Beck found fascinating about the London club scene was the so-called "bottom line" -- the rhythmic force that underpinned the music and often compensated for trite lyrics and otherwise unremarkable mixes.  Indeed, Beck, who normally took long breaks between recordings during his prolific career, was so drawn to the drum-driven techno sound that he returned to the studio to experiment further with its fundamental rhythmic structure. The impressive result can be heard on You Had It Coming, a brash and still unlikely fusion of guitar wizardry and contemporary beats. Anyone looking for proof that Jeff Beck, a Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Famer with the Yardbirds and an immensely successful solo… 2010-12-14T00:06:54+00:00 http://www.first-media.com/index.php/archive/aimee_mann/ http://www.first-media.com/index.php/archive/aimee_mann/#When:23:57:11Z "Now that I've met you / Would you object to never seeing each other again?" So goes the opening couplet of "Deathly," one of nine Mann originals featured on this highly listenable soundtrack. The lines are the heart and soul of not only P.T. Anderson's movie, but Mann's whole lyrical style -- a kind of relationship fatalism that she's been honing since her days in Til Tuesday. To Mann, a relationship is like a shiny red wagon poised at the top of a steep hill. Before it is set in motion, it is a beautiful thing, a noble idea. But once it begins to move, it can only careen downhill, get knocked around and, inevitably, crash and turn over, broken with its wheels spinning. Mann tempers this bleak outlook with gorgeous melodies and arrangements (produced by studio whiz Jon Brion) that are by turns austerely acoustic and almost carnival-like, full… 2010-12-13T23:57:11+00:00 http://www.first-media.com/index.php/archive/george_harrison/ http://www.first-media.com/index.php/archive/george_harrison/#When:23:47:00Z The evidence was there all along.  As The Beatles lurched toward their messy break-up, George Harrison was reaching his creative peak.  Consider "Something," "Here Comes The Sun," and "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" and it’s clear that, away from the ugly in-fighting and legal squabbles that ultimately brought an end to the greatest pop band of all time, Harrison was steadily growing more confident as a songwriter. Still, when the quiet Beatle stepped forward in 1970 and released his own stunning masterpiece, All Things Must Pass, the listening public was caught off guard.  The three-album package -- in effect, rock’s first boxed set -- was a remarkable debut that revealed just how much of Harrison’s talent had been overshadowed by Lennon's and McCartney’s. Without his most famous band mates, Harrison turned instead to such illustrious side players as his best friend Eric Clapton (who was of course falling in love at the time with Harrison’s wife,… 2010-12-13T23:47:00+00:00 http://www.first-media.com/index.php/archive/elvis_costello/ http://www.first-media.com/index.php/archive/elvis_costello/#When:23:33:22Z At first, it seems like a forced pairing. Here is Burt Bacharach, the tuxedo-wearing pinnacle of cool, poised next to the ever-geeky Elvis Costello. But in case we need a reminder that appearances don't matter, that message comes through loud and clear on Painted From Memory: The New Songs of Bacharach and Costello. But set aside their superficial differences and it's obvious how much sense this musical partnership makes. Among contemporary artists, only Costello's soaring melodicism could come close to matching Bacharach's best work from the '60s and '70s, when his inventively sophisticated tunes ruled the charts. Here, their newly co-written songs evoke all the restrained passion of that earlier era. "I Still Have That Other Girl" bears an uncanny resemblance to classic Bacharach / Hal David material, while "This House Is Empty" could be a lyrical descendent of "A House Is Not A Home." But it's the final… 2010-12-13T23:33:22+00:00 http://www.first-media.com/index.php/archive/bruce_springsteen/ http://www.first-media.com/index.php/archive/bruce_springsteen/#When:23:20:34Z At this stage of his career, Bruce Springsteen can do whatever he damn well pleases. It is quite likely that Columbia Records would have preferred that he not make an album comprised entirely of his intrepretations of traditional folk songs, particularly since the freshest tune on this collection ("My Oklahoma Home") was written more than 50 years ago and the oldest ("Froggie Went a Courtin’) was first published way back in 1549, some 427 years before the release of "Born to Run." But, hey, the Boss has put enough money into Columbia’s corporate pockets over the years to buy a little creative leeway.  In this case, Springsteen’s desire was to pay homage to folk legend Pete Seeger by putting a personal spin on 13 folk classics Seeger has helped to popularize during the past 70 years. With the help of E Street Band violinist Soozie Tyrell, he assembled… 2010-12-13T23:20:34+00:00