When bluesman Waters performed in England in 1958, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were so impressed they named their fledgling rock band after one of Waters's signature tunes, "Rolling Stone." Much to Waters's amusement, the young upstarts paid him the further compliment of imitating the style of electric blues he pioneered. "The blues had a baby," he later joked, "and they called it rock and roll."
Six years after Waters's death from a heart attack at age 68, the spirit of the self-proclaimed Hoochie Coochie Man lives on in this six-album collection of 72 of his classic blues tunes. The ecstatic rasps on Waters's guitar create an aura of aching sensuality few of his imitators have ever been able to duplicate.
He was one of the first bluesmen to take the gritty sound of the Mississippi Delta and transplant it to the South Side of Chicago, where he recorded one R&B jukebox hit after another between 1947 and 1972 for a small label owned by the Russian immigrant brothers Phil and Leonard Chess. Included here is "I Can't Be Satisfied," the song that launched Waters's career, as well as such early classics as "Long Distance Call," "I Feel Like Going Home" and "Rollin' and Tumblin'." Produced with sparse instrumentation, these tunes feature Waters's fluid slide guitar and vocals that run from soft trembling moans to a ferocious animal roar.
Through the '50s and '60s, Waters fronted an electric blues band that served as a proving ground for such ambitious players as Little Walter Jacobs, Otis Span, Junior Wells, James Cotton, Carey Bell, Buddy Guy and Pinetop Perkins. His greatest hits from the period—notably "Got My Mojo Working," "Trouble No More," "Mannish Boy" and "Baby Please Don't Go"—still sound remarkably fresh. And hard-core Waters fans will be delighted to discover many rare cuts in this collection, including a 1964 rendition of the rollicking "Short Dress Woman," previously unreleased on a U.S. album.
Waters's music is raw and uncompromising. His voice has the commanding authority and mesmerizing lilt of an evangelical preacher, even as he celebrates the pleasures of the flesh and ponders the mysteries of voodoo.
This is the real blues—deep blues. The baby it sired, even at its best, is only rock and roll. (MCA Records)
Loey Nelson
Gone are the days when Milwaukee was famous only for its smelt run, the breweries, cheese and the fact that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar found the city so unhip he demanded to be traded from the Bucks.
Now the town can boast of its annual, polycultural Summerfest fair, its esteemed art museum, the fact that Abdul-Jabbar has retired so who cares about him anymore anyway, and this insinuating, smart, dry-voiced young singer. Nelson, 27, has an austere vocal quality reminiscent of Edie Brickell, and some of Nelson's songs—"Black Highway," "Night Sky," "Railroad Track"—reflect the same kind of detached attitude that Brickell wields so effectively. If there were a prairie rock school of pop music, both of them would fit right in.
Nelson may have the more aggressive sense of humor, though. This debut album includes a rare cover of the theme from the old Sidney Poitier movie To Sir, with Love. If you haven't seen the movie and don't know that Poitier, teaching a class of teen semidelinquents in London, insisted that they call him Sir, the song doesn't make much sense, but it seems appealingly quaint in any case.
The only other one of the album's 12 songs Nelson didn't write is the whimsical "Only the Shadows Know," in which composers Doc Pomus and Dr. John play around with the old radio character the Shadow and his slogan, "The Shadow knows."
(Oddity buffs may also want to note that this album, like Christine Lavin's current album, Attainable Love, includes a song called "Venus Kissed the Moon," but they're different songs, though both smack of inspiration by a 1988 astronomical coincidence in which Venus and the moon appeared close together in the night sky.)
But then Nelson herself wrote "Gypsy Rose," which alludes to both the striptease artiste Gypsy Rose Lee and the musical version of her life, Gypsy. Is Wisconsin ready for the Hip Singer That Made Milwaukee Famous? (Warner Bros.)
Black Uhuru
Kotch
Back in the '80s, Black Uhuru, a Jamaican band that has had more roster changes over the last few years than the New York Yankees, set a benchmark with such albums as Anthem and Chill Out, which couched their reggae style in a blistering rock shell to very exciting effect.
Now (Mesa/Bluemoon) reunites founding members Garth Dennis and Don Carlos with Duckie Simpson—playing together for the first time in 13 years—for a much simpler, more traditional reggae sound. Granted, there's a wired-up guitar solo by Frank Stepanek on the antidrug dance tune "Reggae Rock," but most of the songs, such as "The Heathen" and "Imposter," rely primarily on a thick bass line and a multifaceted percussive attack, with occasional staccato piano phrases counterpoised to the rhythm.
Michael Rose, Black Uhuru's singer during the Anthem era, is a tough act to follow—as Delroy Reid (the group's subsequent lead singer) can attest. But Carlos I has a balmy, sonorous voice, especially when he's dropped into the echo chamber on songs like "Army Band."
Speaking of voices, Norman Espuet, the lead singer for Kotch, has a ravishing, seraphic falsetto that makes him sound like a Caribbean Smokey Robinson.
On their debut Kotch (Mango), the six-piece band covers two Smokey standards, "Ooo, Baby, Baby" and "Tracks of My Tears." They also cover Eric Clapton's "Wonderful Tonight" and a number of lesser-known compositions, such as "Broken Hearted Melody" by Sherman Edwards and Hal David, all in a lilting fashion. But it's Espuet's Smokey simulations that make you second his emotion.
Midnight Oil
With the current charts featuring such groups as Milli Vanilli and New Kids on the Block, whose sense of pop history dates back to last week, it's more than a bit refreshing to listen to the third major-label record from Australia's energetic Midnight Oil.
What's even more satisfying about Blue Sky Mining is its consistency coming off the group's monster LP Diesel and Dust two years ago. Their music is as accessible as any haircut band headed for the charts but with one huge difference: They have shaped a style (heck, they've actually got one) that graciously gives a nod to influences like the Stones and the best of new wave, yet still manages to sound vibrantly original. Take a listen to the album's best cut, "King of the Mountain." You could plop this juicy rocker into any jukebox and leave it there for years, and it might never sound dated.
The band's other asset is its rangy front man and lead singer Peter Garrett. At 6'6", Garrett could command attention just by standing around. But he does much more than that. He sings with a passion for the music and, not incidentally, the causes he wants people to know about.
Unlike such doomsayers as Jackson Browne, whose music has become subservient to political diatribes, Garrett makes issues like the destruction of the planet and worker exploitation come alive. He and the band reel you in with pleasant hooks, and while he has your attention, he points out the problems he thinks the world needs to confront.
Topical or fashionable? Well, it's a bit of both, maybe, but when the record is over, chances are you'll remember the music as well as the message. Can anyone say the same about a certain rhyming-named British duo with braids? (Columbia)
>Memorable versions of songs written by Jimmy Van Heusen, who died Feb. 7. (His collaborators are listed in parentheses):
"Aren't You Glad You're You" (Johnny Burke) —Fran Jeffries
"Come Fly with Me" (Sammy Cahn)—Frank Sinatra
"Darn That Dream" (Eddie de Lange)—Mildred Bailey
"Here's That Rainy Day" (Burke)—Peggy Lee
"I'll Only Miss Him When I Think of Him" (Cahn)—Toni Tennille
"It Could Happen to You" (Burke)—Robert Palmer
"Like Someone in Love" (Burke)—Dexter Gordon
"Love Is a Bore" (Cahn)—Barbra Streisand
"Moonlight Becomes You" (Burke)—Bing Crosby
"Personality" (Burke)—Johnny Mercer
"Put It There, Pal" (Burke)—Bing Crosby and Bob Hope
- Contributors:
- David Grogan,
- Ralph Novak,
- David Hiltbrand,
- Andrew Abrahams.
VANISHED WITHOUT A TRACE
Heartbreak & Hope
After Jaycee Dugard's rescue, a look at the cases of six young people who went missing in 2009
