Rhonda Vincent joins Jamie Dailey and her brother Darrin Vincent on ‘Those Memories of You’ from Dailey & Vincent’s Let’s Sing Some Country! album
THROUGH WITH COOL
Al Basile (Sweetspot Records)
Don’t be misled by the title. By definition, Al Basile is cool, and that’s that. However, being a highly literate songwriter (and published poet), herein he paints portraits of several misguided souls who might be said to be through with cool—like the flighty gal he unloads on in the ironically titled “Keep on Living,” an album opener with sinister overtones in its exotic rhythmic pulse and the instrumental interjections by Al’s cornet and Kid Anderson’s guitar. Rife with both humor and truth, “Turnabout is Fair Play,” a midtempo blues grinder fueled by Anderson’s aggrieved guitar work, finds Al calling out the entire male species for not getting over themselves when it comes to women and adding his own piercing cornet solo in seconding those emotions. Over a decidedly noir-ish backdrop fashioned by the combination of Al’s mordant cornet solo, Bruce Bears’s moody keyboard flourishes and Anderson’s understated, bluesy guitar punctuations—a bent note here, a trebly flurry there—Al turns “We Lie on Your Grave” into a chilling, near-six-and-a-half-minute note from underground detailing a weird, and decidedly uncool, night in a cemetery with a paramour whose favorite trysting spot it is. “It’s not my night to die,” Al concludes, cool amidst the uncool. –David McGee
‘Turnabout is Fair Play,” Al Basile, with Kid Anderson on guitar, from Through With Cool
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RICH WHITE HONKY BLUES
Hank Williams Jr. (Easy Eye Sound)
Of the many positive things to say about this nigh-on-to-startling Hank Williams Jr. album, begin with declaring it one of the best blues albums of the year—yes, a blues album, and deep blues at that. Far more important, Hank Jr.’s daddy would surely approve of what the son he nicknamed Bocephus has wrought here in acoustic and electric form both. With a huge assist from Dan Auerbach, who produced the sessions at his own Nashville studio and becomes a compelling second voice to Hank’s own with several piercing electric and slide guitar solos (plus dobro on Lightnin’ Hopkins’ “Jesus Won’t You Come By Here”), Hank reaches way down into a well of soul conspicuously absent from his recent efforts. The man is simply reasserting himself as a force of nature again, whether it’s howling at the gods on his own punishing blitzkrieg (the self-lacerating “I Like It When It’s Stormy,” containing a chilling autobiographical lyric in “I like it when it’s stormy/’cause it reminds me of my life/when lightning strikes without warning/like it has in my world one or twice…”); assertively taking no guff, lethally so, on Robert Johnson’s “.44 Special Blues”; or getting the salacious most out of a couple of R.L. Burnside hill country blues gems (including “Georgia Women”). The fury is unceasing throughout, the sense of humor intact (and even subtle at points, along with one lamentable sophomoric sexual aside), and the artistry in full flower. Bocephus, don’t fall off this mountain, y’hear? –David McGee
‘I Like It When It’s Stormy,’ Hank Williams Jr. from Rich White Honky Blues
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LET’S SING SOME COUNTRY!
Dailey & Vincent (BMG)
Since teaming up in 2007, Jamie Dailey and Darrin Vincent have done a lot of good things together as they rose to the bluegrass world’s upper echelon; and now, all these years later, the duo is taking a detour into full-on traditional country with predictably solid results. On 11 tunes bearing songwriter credits on the order of Vince Gill (three songs, in fact, including the sadder-than-sad breakup ballad, “Colder Than Winter”), Karen Staley (two songs), Jimmy Fortune, Steve Earle (“Hillbilly Highway”) and others. Add to the guest list Darrin’s legendary sister, Queen of Bluegrass Rhonda Vincent (who began her solo career as a mainstream country artist), lending affecting high harmonies to the anguished, ominous ambiance of “Those Memories of You,” the trio summoning every bit of the Homeric heartache of The Trio’s 1987version; and producer Paul Worley (of Dixie Chicks fame, among many other major artists on his resume), who knows exactly how to frame the Dailey & Vincent country sound in a way that also does justice to the duo’s bluegrass hearts (you can take the voices out of the mountains but you can’t take the mountains out of the voices). Jamie Dailey, in spectacular vocal form, flat puts the hurt, the heartache and the exultation on the tales he tells, his emotive flights always hitting listeners where they live. The album opening Staley tune, “I’ll Leave My Heart in Tennessee,” speaks to Dailey’s love for his home state’s natural majesty and you don’t have to listen hard to get the message. There’s beauty in the balladry of “Closer to You,” humor in the boozy meditations of “If I Die A-Drinkin'” and touching pathos in the frank testimony of a life saved by love in “You Rescued Me.” Staunch proponents of the quartet sound, D&V get an Oak Ridge Boys-style bass-heavy foursome rolling on the instructive self-help advice of “Dig a Little Deeper in the Well.” Tired of bro country? D&V are good for what ails you. –David McGee
‘Those Memories of You,’ Dailey & Vincent, with Rhonda Vincent, from Let’s Sing Some Country!
