Rarely has a singer been better matched to her material. On this live CD, recorded at the New Morning cabaret in Paris, Faithfull performs the music of Kurt Weill, as well as other haunting songs evoking Germany's Weimar Republic. Faithfull isn't some rock dilettante attempting a crossover into more "serious" music; in 1991 she played Pirate Jenny in The Threepenny Opera in Dublin, and selections here feature the new, earthy translations from that production.
Faithfull, who began her career as a pop singer (Mick Jagger and Keith Richards wrote "As Tears Go By" for her), and who chronicled her battles with various addictions and demons in a 1994 autobiography, wraps her weathered, world-weary voice around such Weill standards as "Mack the Knife," "Surabaya Johnny" and "Alabama Song," as well as the Noël Coward title cut and Marlene Dietrich's signature "Falling in Love Again."
While some tenderness occasionally seeps through (as in Harry Nilsson's "Don't Forget Me"), these are dark, moody songs. Faithfull, with deft accompaniment from pianist Paul True-blood, sounds as if she not only understands her material but—check out her take on "Boulevard of Broken Dreams"—has lived it. (RCA Victor)
Rahsaan Patterson
It would be easy to dismiss Rahsaan Patterson as yet another in a seemingly endless parade of R&B Romeos. After all, he fits the profile: young, good-looking and ready, willing and able to dish out the come-ons. But Patterson, who cowrote Brandy's No. 1 hit "Baby," has more on his mind than just getting some. Or, to be more precise, he's figured out a more interesting way of going about it.
The 23-year-old has a serious skill for coming up with catchy, funky songs that avoid formulas—acoustic-based arrangements, for instance, that manage not to make him sound like Baby face. On the percolating "My Sweetheart," Patterson displays a playful sexiness that can't help melting hearts. Armed with a soaring tenor that has more than a little Stevie Wonder (circa Talking Book) to it, and a set of joyous love songs, Rahsaan Patterson enters the R&B sweepstakes with a winning ticket. (MCA)
Nuno
For a band that broke up last year, Extreme still makes a lot of news. The Boston group, best known for the limp 1991 hit ballad "More Than Words," got plenty of press when its ex-lead vocalist Gary Cherone stepped into the shoes of Sammy Hagar and David Lee Roth as Van Halen's singer. Now Extreme guitarist Nuno Bettencourt has gone off on his own to make a solo disc more compelling than any of his former band's.
Schizophonic sounds like musical candy, hard-rock on the outside with plenty of sweet, chewy pop on the inside. There are enough bursts of crunchy guitar to satisfy the metal-heads, but what really defines the CD are the jangly hooks: Think Soundgarden meets Foo Fighters. Bettencourt's debut drags a bit toward the end, but still, the next Van Halen album better be something special if Cherone is going to keep pace with his former bandmate. (A&M)
Moby
Kick off your dancing shoes—you won't need them. For the follow-up to his acclaimed 1995 disc, Everything Is Wrong, Moby has ditched the haunting, strobe-lit club groove of techno and joined the headbangers' ball. Problem is, he doesn't seem to be having much fun. And neither will anyone who sits through his tortured ranting on heavy-metal assaults like "Soft" and "Face It."
While Animal Rights contains some moments of jaw-dropping beauty—"Alone" rolls by like horses stampeding in slow motion, and, despite its title, the crescendo of "Dead Sun" could actually be the soundtrack to a gorgeous sunrise—things get overblown and rote when Moby kicks out the jams. His agonized bawl over the all-too-familiar industrial din of "Someone to Love" and "Come On Baby," in particular, gives one the feeling of being bludgeoned by Tool and pummeled with Nine Inch Nails. (Elektra)
Charlie Haden & Pat Metheny
Charlie Haden, one of jazz's reigning bassists, started out as a child country-music performer in the '40s. Two years ago, Haden gave his career a retrospective nudge with Steal Away: Spirituals, Hymns and Folk Songs, a marvelous album that paired him with pianist Hank Jones. In Beyond the Missouri Sky, Haden continues his backward journey in another group of duets, this time with fellow Missourian Pat Metheny. The album features not only a handful of old-time country tunes, but at its bare-bones best, it powerfully evokes the empty plains and vast skies of the pair's native Midwest.
Things start promisingly with Haden's "Waltz for Ruth" and "Our Spanish Love Song," Metheny soloing nimbly and expressively on both. Silence is as important here as sound: the silence against which Haden and Metheny etch their lines like master draftsmen. But when Metheny starts filling the spaces with synthesizer accompaniments ("He's Gone Away," "The Moon Song") the drama instantly lessens, the music turning perilously close to elevator fare. Metheny has a saccharine streak; on overripe melodies like Henry Mancini's "Two for the Road" or Jim Webb's "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress," he even manages to waken Haden's own latent schmaltz tendencies.
Beyond the Missouri Sky is a mixed success, most affecting when it's terse and bluesy. But anyone, meanwhile, who doubts the bass fiddle's capacities as a lead instrument needs to hear Haden's noble, passionate playing. (Verve)
BR5-49
With the floodwaters of "new" country washing so much of the musical and cultural grit—and grits—right out of Nashville lately, it's difficult to say enough good things about BR5-49. This merry band of honky-tonkin' strict constructionists are as allergic to line dancing as they are proud to be named after Junior Samples's phone number on Hee Haw. Emerging from the belly of the beast—they spent nearly two years playing for tips in a Music City boot store/beer bar across from the Ernest Tubb record shop before signing a recording deal—the group's rollicking studio debut is a much-needed reminder that country music's traditions run deeper than 10-gallon hats and pickup trucks.
With two solid lead singers in Gary Bennett and Chuck Mead, and with Don Herron's incendiary steel guitar and fiddle lighting the musical way, BR5-49 nimbly roams through a variety of country styles, from bluegrass duets ("Are You Gettin' Tired of Me") and Tex-Mex ballads ("Chains of This Town") to western swing ("Little Ramona [Gone Hillbilly Nuts]") and rockabilly rave-ups ("One Long Saturday Night"). Couple these originals with such freshly polished old gems as "Cherokee Boogie," "I Ain't Never" and "Crazy Arms," and you'll understand why BR5-49's music is guaranteed to drive any fan of real country hillbilly nuts. Hey-hoa-lena, indeed. (Arista/Nashville)
>Peggy Scott-Adams
GOT THOSE HE'S-A-BISEXUAL BLUES
Last June, as Peggy Scott-Adams started work on Help Yourself, the 48-year-old R&B singer hoped only that the album would "get the name back out there." Although she'd duetted with Ray Charles a few years ago, Scott-Adams was still best known for '60s hits like "Lover's Holiday" (with Jo Jo Benson), and nine years ago she'd put her career on hold to manage husband Robert Adams's mortuary business in Compton, Calif. Now she planned a low-key comeback. Forget about it. What she got instead is an album climbing rapidly up the charts, propelled by the unlikely radio hit "Bill," about a man dumping his woman—for another man. Veteran songwriter Jimmy Lewis's tune has such lyrics as "I was ready for Mary/Susan, Helen and Jane/When all the time it was Bill/That was sleepin' with my man."
Scott-Adams never thought she'd be belting out tunes about gay issues when she left her native Florida to sing backup for Ben E. King ("Stand by Me") at age 16. But life, she knows, is full of unexpected twists. She met her second husband, Adams, in 1987, one night during a gig in Compton. He'd fallen asleep watching her club act, and she yelled at him. "He woke up," she says, "and he's been awake ever since." Scott-Adams talked with reporter Lan N. Nguyen about her comeback.
How did you react when you first heard "Bill"?
From the setup, I'm waiting for the typical he-dumped-her-for-her. When Jimmy Lewis sang, "The man I loved/ Loved another guy," I literally hollered, "What?!"
What made you record it?
After I got past the shock, I realized that this song is about deception. To be betrayed or deceived by anyone is devastating.
And how have your fans responded?
People all over the country are calling in crying and saying, "It happened to me," or "I know someone that it happened to." The majority have embraced this song. The gay issue is out there. It's been around before I was here, and I'm sure it will be here when I'm long gone
- Contributors:
- David Goldman,
- Amy Linden,
- Craig Tomashoff,
- Jeremy Helligar,
- Tony Scherman,
- Billy Altman.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
