Dos Maestros: Knopfler & Chet Atkins

Mark Knopfler is of course best known for his work as guitarist, vocalist, songwriter and all-around ring-leader  of the rock band Dire Straights. He's had an accomplished career marked both by critical success and the overwhelmingly omnipresent commercial success of "Money or Nothing," the hit song from the 1984 album Brothers In Arms that managed to be an era-defining video on MTV while at the same time skewering the very channel.

Chet Atkins has been equally revered for his skill and success, with a stellar career that dates back to the 1950s. Known mostly as a country artist and a pioneer of the "Nashville sound" that proliferated in the 1970s, Atkins style drew widely from jazz greats like Django Reinhart. He was also renowned as a record executive, producer and multi-instrumentalist. He is a legend in his own right.

By 1990, Atkins had already made of career-long habit of recording with like-minded guitarists, including notable collaborations with Jerry Reed, Les Paul and others.

Knopfler, who had long cited Atkins as a major influence, finally collaborated with Atkins in that year for the album, Neck and Neck. It was a critical sucess, garnering two Grammy awards.

But even before that album came out, the two had been picking together, honing their collborative sound. They performed together in 1987 at the benefit concert The Secret Policeman's Third Ball in London.

An excerpt from that performance is making the YouTube rounds and includes the 1920s popular song "I'll See You In My Dreams" and John Lennon's "Imagine."

With appreciation for the heads-up to the Italian website MusicOff.com,  here it is:

Fates Stop The Spinning

 By Tom Speed

Hey there. You know, I spend a lot of time listening to music —evaluating it, processing it, thinking about it, comparing it to other music. Then I write stuff about it. Sometimes it can get to be overwhelming when the backlog starts to pile up. It starts to feel more like a job, which it is, kinda. But it’s so much better when it doesn’t feel that way and you can enjoy it and it feels like an adventure where you’re seeking out hidden treasure. When you find it you can hold it high over your head and say ‘behold!” and hope people look at it before they flip the page to a cologne ad or click through to play some data-mining game that’s going to eat away at the rest of their afternoon. 

(Yes, I know, poor Tom has to listen to music and get paid (albeit not very much) to tell people what he thinks about it. Wah. Sorry.)

But from time to time when the projects pile up, it’s hard to find the joy and without the joy it’s hard to find the truth. Just the other day, I was behind schedule on album reviews of Valerie June and Belle Adair. I was scheduled to interview Shannon McNally that afternoon for a story due the next day. I still hadnn’t transcribed my interviews with Tyler Keith and Eric Easley from Blitzen Trapper. I needed to schedule interviews with the North Mississippi Allstars, Derek Trucks and Anders Osborne all in the next week. But before that I needed to listen to those albums like 10 more times. 

And I was still trying to wrap my head around this massive 6 CD, DVD, Book and a 78-RPM Woody Guthrie box set. Trying to think critically about all of this stuff and find time to put it into words can be dizzying, especially when the above stories are for a half-dozen different publications, each with their own editors and deadlines and needs. It feels like spinning plates sometimes. If you stop, they’ll all fall down.

So when I go for my morning walk, what the hell do I put on my iPod? How do I keep the plates from dropping? Or is it possible, somehow, to just make them stop. Freeze time. Turns out there is. I found a way and it was an ancient one. I called on the Fates.

I summoned her in the form of the “random” function on the iPod. People have long marveled at the seemingly non-random nature of this function. Sometimes it seems like the little machine is choosing songs just for your mood. Or that, “wow, today this iPod really likes the Rolling Stones!”  The truth is, making order out of chaos is the way we make our reality. So when we see the little connective tissue appear in random events, we’re just making it orderly so that we can understand it on some elemental level.

So I called on the Fates to calm my mind and pause those plates for a half hour or so, so I could just enjoy my walk. It was, after all, a beautiful morning in Oxford, Mississippi and I needed the next 30-45 minutes to enjoy it and not think about my to-do list.

I called on them, and this is what they bestowed:

1.     Robert Earl Keen —  “Floppy Shoes”

One of the great things about the random feature is that songs pop up that you might never pull from the shelf otherwise. This is a great freewheeling tune from REK that has a funky groove and is loaded with an energy for abandoning one’s responsibilities and hitting the open road with a tie-dyed tee shirt and a pair of flip-flops. Maybe Fate did pick this one out just for me.

2.     Richard Cheese – “Pour Some Sugar On Me”

I saw this guy at SXSW one year and bought a bunch of his albums. It’s shtick. He does lounge versions of well-known hits, and the funniest ones are the ones that provide the most juxtaposition. So when he golden-throats the “I’m hot, sticky, sweet” line I’m laughing and swinging and rocking at the same time. And it reminds me of my wife who is resolute in her unabashed love for Def Leppard. So Fate has me smiling at this point.

3.     The David Grisman Bluegrass Experience --- “Say Won’t You Be Mine”

I’m a big fan of most forms of Dawg Music, but I never listened to this album much when it came out. It was just one of those that fell through the cracks. It’s no secret Grisman is a hell of a player, and the group he put together for this record has some great, classic bluegrass harmonies on this song.

4.     Tinsley Ellis– “Freddy’s Midnight Dream”

I recently interviewed Tinsley for Living Blues about his most recent record, the instrumental Get It! Loved talking to him about it. It’s a great record. The Freddy here references King not Krueger. Glad that this popped up instead of something from the to-do list.

5.     Arcade Fire–  “Ocean of Noise”

A brooding and moody change of pace from their Neon Bible record that kind of got me fired up to hear their new one.

6.     Backyard Tire Fire—“Don’t Know What To Do”

This is/was a fantastic band from Illinois (or was it Indiana?) led by Ed Anderson, who writes, sings, plays guitar and piano and everything else. I love everything they’ve put out and never understood why folks like this don’t get more recognition that the far less talented folks who do. Currently, Ed is on tour with Johnny Hickman from Cracker. Check him out if he comes around.

7.     Something I can’t remember.

I think it was a reggae tune. Seriously, I just spaced out there for a while and I had remembered everything until then. When I realized I was missing something, I tried to hit the “back” button on my iPod but hit the wrong thing and

8.     Gov’t Mule— “Broke Down on the Brazos”

      Another example of getting lost in the digital realm, I downloaded this concert recording from a New Orleans show this year, and had never listened to it. Not once. Got distracted and just forgot about it. This is the problem with digital music. It’s not on your shelf. You don’t see it. You can put something in your iTunes and it’s all too easy to forget it. Thanks Fates. That rocked.

New Black Angels

Do you love heavy exploratory psychedelic jams that make you feel woozy? Me too. The Black Angels are keeping that sound alive and in a good way that doesn't just sound like a bunch of kids who have discovered Piper At The Gates of Dawn for the first time. They've got their own spin and they have a new record coming out.

Here's the info on the new disc:

Blue Horizon has announced it has signed Austin-based psychedelic rock band, The Black Angels. The Black Angels third album, and first release on Blue Horizon, is the highly anticipated Phosphene Dream, which is set for release on September 14th in the US and September 13th in the UK. Phosphene Dream marks a giant leap forward for the band. Produced and mixed by Dave Sardy (Oasis, Wolfmother, Black Mountain) over a period of six months in Los Angeles, the album shows off both sonically and musically a bold new direction for The Black Angels, a fresh take on the neo-Psychedelic movement they've been at the forefront of for years.

To hear the first track from Phosphene Dream, "Bad Vibrations," click here.

While past albums Passover and Directions to See a Ghost were recorded in the band's hometown of Austin, Texas, the process by which Phosphene Dream was created pulled the band out of their comfort zone and forced them to look at songwriting and recording in a way they never had before. Years of non-stop worldwide touring have turned The Black Angels into a tightly wound unit, and those years of work are all on showcase here. The band plans to celebrate the release with more years of touring, starting at the end of August where the band will be playing the Reading and Leeds festivals in the UK, Rock en Seine in Paris, and the highly coveted Jim Jarmusch curated stage at ATP in NYC. An announcement of their full fall touring plans will be coming shortly.

The deal also serves of particular importance as it marks the first band signed to the label since industry icons Richard Gottehrer, co-founder of The Orchard (NASDAQ: ORCD), and Seymour Stein CEO of Sire Records (WMG) announced its revival earlier this year at MIDEM.

Seymour Stein commented, "Great musicianship and performers, mesmerizing vocals, and songs that penetrate the subconscious. That's the best way to describe Black Angels, our first signing to Blue Horizon records. In every way the band is perfect choice to re-launch to this iconic label."

Richard Gottehrer continued on, "Everyone was so receptive when we announced we were bringing Blue Horizon back. We hope they share in our excitement for the great things we have in store in modernizing this label to serve as a source of music from emerging artists across genres."

Ry Cooder & Paddy Maloney

The Chieftains' Paddy Moloney and Ry Cooder bring together the musical souls of two nations, Ireland and Mexico, in a mini documentary exploring the making-of their new album 'San Patricio' (March 9 / Hear Music/Concord Music Group). Watch the video now on Nat Geo Music at National Geographic.com.

The heart-stirring songs of 'San Patricio' bring to life the story of a downtrodden group of Irish immigrant conscripts who deserted the U.S. Army in 1846 to fight on the Mexican side against the invading Yankees in the Mexican-American War (1846-1848).

In the video, Paddy Moloney is on-site at the Former Convent of Churubusco - the location of the San Patricio Battalion's last stand - retelling the nearly forgotten story. Moloney and Ry Cooder then sit down for a one-on-one interview to discuss the recording process, as well as the historical and religious bonds between Ireland and Mexico.

The 'San Patricio' mini documentary features in-studio footage and some of the album's brilliant roster of Irish, Mexican and American guest artists including Lila Downs, Los Tigres del Norte, legendary 92-year-old Mexican ranchero singer Chavela Vargas, and many more.

VIDEO HERE:
http://worldmusic.nationalgeographic.com/view/page.basic/article/content.article/chieftians_promo/en_US

Gypsyphonic Disko Drops

Galactic saxophonist Ben Ellman has long dabbled in musical forms outside of that group's trademark steamroller funk sound. He's been a long time member of New Orleans Klezmer Allstars and was a driving force behind the G-Men's 2007 album "From The Corner To The Block" which included a cavalcade of hip-hop stars collaborating with the band. He's combining those last two influences with his DJ Project, Gypsyphonic Disko. He performed at last summer's Bonnaroo Fest and on the latest Jam Cruise. Now he has a recording out, available on his blog, http://gypsyphonicdisko.blogspot.com/,

Ellman calls his first mixtape, "A mash of New Orleans bounce, klezmer, hip hop, and Balkan music. It's hosted by Chali2na (J5) and features exclusive recordings by: Sissy Nobby, Juvenile, Gift of Gab, Katey Red, Lateef the Truthspeaker and Big Freedia."

Download it in its entirety: here

The City Champs To Tour with NMAS

The City Champs are the latest in a long lineage of Memphis musicians to grab the mantle of funky, soul-jazz instrumentals pioneered by acts like Booker T & the MGs, Willie Mitchell and The Bar-Kays. Their debut album, The Safecracker features 7 prime cuts of Stax, Hi Records and Blue Note-inspired soul-jazz and funk, produced and engineered by Memphis producer and film composer, Scott Bomar (the Bo-Keys, “Hustle & Flow” & “Soul Men”) at his Electraphonic Recording studio.

February finds The City Champs hitting the road with their friends and neighbors, The North Mississippi All-Stars for a national tour!

The City Champs are led by guitarist, Joe Restivo, who also penned the original material on the album. Joe is one of the premier R&B/Jazz guitarists in Memphis and holds a BFA in Jazz Studies from the prestigious New School in New York City, where he studied with jazz greats Jack Wilkins, Junior Mance, Cecil Bridgewater, and Phil Markowitz. Organist Al Gamble hails from the Muscle Shoals, Alabama region, and has performed live and on recordings with such notables as Rufus Thomas, Syl Johnson, Alex Chilton, and the Memphis Horns. Drummer George Sluppick is a native Memphian who has spent most of his life on the road performing live and recording with many notables, including Albert King, Robert Walter's 20th Congress, Melvin Sparks, Ruthie Foster and JJ Grey and MOFRO. The sessions were tracked and mixed entirely on analog tape—Bomar used his Scully 1” 8-track machine, which was the same model used at Stax, Muscle Shoals Sound, and Chip’s Moman’s American Studio. Mastered straight off analog tapes, directly to disc by mastering engineer Larry Nix on the same equipment he used daily at Stax Records.

The City Champs have music featured in the new Craig Brewer series from MTV New Media- $5 COVER. The group also has music featured in the new documentary, "I AM A MAN" You can watch the trailer and stream the film here: iamamanthemovie.com

Website: http://www.thecitychamps.com/ and Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/thecitychampsmusic


THE CITY CHAMPS w/ THE NORTH MISSISSIPPI ALL-STARS


2/04 – Fayetteville, AR – George’s Majestic Lounge
2/05 – Nashville, TN – Cannery Ballroom
2/06 – Chicago, IL – Cubby Bear
2/08 – Omaha, NE - Slowdown
2/10 – Breckenridge, CO – Three20South
2/11 – Aspen, CO – Belly Up
2/12 – Ft. Collins, CO – Aggie Theatre
2/17 – Starkville, MS – Rick’s Cafe 02/18 – Oxford, MS – The Lyric
2/19 – Atlanta, GA – Variety Playhouse
2/20 – Asheville, NC – Orange Peel
2/21 – Charlottesville, VA – Jefferson Theatre
2/24 – State College, PA – State Theatre
2/25 – Philadelphia, PA – World Café Live
2/26 – New York, NY – Highline Ballroom
2/27 – Falls Church, VA – State Theatre
2/28 – Carrboro, NC – Cat’s Cradle

Trey On The History of TAB

TREY ANASTASIO TALKS TAB
from the Trey newsletter...

Q: Phish just wrapped up 2009 with four consecutive nights at Miami's American Airlines arena and here you are, already embarking on another tour, this time with Classic TAB..

TA: I am [laughs]. One of things that we're excited about is that we're getting to play some towns that Phish or TAB hasn't been to in quite a while like Milwaukee or Kansas City. We're really looking forward to that.



Q: Is the first time TAB has toured as a septet?

TA: Yes, this is the first time we'll have seven people - it's sort of lean and mean. The group has been going since '98 and it grows and retreats in numbers. I've gone out with a three-piece, a six-piece, an eight-piece, a nine-piece, a ten-piece and an eleven-piece. I really spent a lot of time thinking about this tour. I had a lot of horn-based material and I realized that I really needed three horns to make it happen - a tenor, a trombone and a trumpet. At one point the horn section was as big as five people. But if you write economical arrangements, you can sometimes make a richer sounding chord with less people, less voices.

So this tour, it's going to be the core of the band - Ray Paczkowski, Jennifer Hartswick, Russ Lawton, Tony Markellis and Russ Remington - we've all been together for 10-12 years. And we're really excited to have Natalie Cressman, who is Jeff Cressman's 18-year-old daughter, join us. Jeff was our trombone player up until 2008. He's going out with Santana, so his daughter is our first second-generation member and she's an incredible player.



Q: Will you be debuting some new material on the tour?

TA: Yes, we'll be bringing a lot of new material to the table. This band is sort of a breeding ground for Phish material. Songs like "Bug," "Heavy Things," "Backwards Down the Number Line," "Sand," "First Tube," "Gotta Jibboo" - all these songs started out in the TAB band and then sort of made their way to Phish. For instance, last year we did "Alaska" with TAB and it ended up being performed with Phish. So it's a process that seems to work.

Q:Will you also be playing songs from throughout your solo career?

TA: Yes, stuff like "Cayman Review" and "Push On 'Til The Day" from my first album and some songs off Shine - "Sleep Again," "Wherever You Find It" and "Sweet Dreams Melinda." There's a song called "Goodbye Head" that's on Bar 17 that I always thought could be good but we never really had time to get at it because it's pretty complicated. So we're going to work on that one. And we're including material from The Horseshoe Curve, like "Olivia" and "Burlap Sack & Pumps." The band has a pretty deep repertoire - our master song list has at least 50 songs on it that Phish doesn't play.

Q: And rehearsals are underway?

TA: Yes, so far we've scheduled two weeks of rehearsal and that's a lot more than we've ever had, ever. We started in December with the three horn players and my friend, Don Hart, who I collaborated with on Time Turns Elastic. We spent three days at my house going through all the old charts - shoeboxes full of papers, many of them handwritten, from 10 years of horn writing. Don helped us re-voice the chords to sound richer and we finally did the work of perfecting that whole library of music. Don is also contributing some great new charts that he's been composing. The charts are now being organized into a book like swing bands used to have. That's been a dream of mine for years now because you can add to it quite easily and it allows you to proactively use your rehearsal time.

Q: TAB has quite a history. How did the band come together?

TA: Part of the reason that I moved to Burlington was because the first night I ever visited, I went out and had a great time dancing to this band called Big Joe Burrell & The Unknown Blues Band. I loved them so much. When Sue and I got married in 94', they even played at our wedding. I was a huge fan of their bass player, Tony Markellis, and I always wanted to play with him.


So when my brother-in-law was opening a club called Higher Ground in Burlington and he asked me to play a benefit concert for his opening weekend in the spring of '98, I called Tony and he suggested his favorite drummer, Russ Lawton. The three of us got together and we did a bunch of grooves that I took and wrote songs to - "First Tube," "Sand," "Gotta Jibboo," "Last Tube" and a few others. Those songs now are well known Phish songs, but that's where they started. The band, which had a couple of other players, was called the 8FT Fluorescent Tubes and we had crazy dancers on stage with actual eight-foot-long fluorescent tubes.

We went on tour as a trio in the spring of 1999. A year or two later, I started bringing the horns along. The horn section was built around Jennifer Hartswick, who plays trumpet. Jennifer had just graduated from Lyndon Institute, a high school in Vermont. She came and played a session for me and I was not only blown away by her, but quickly became very, very close friends with her.

Russ Remington, who's the tenor saxophone player, is an old friend. He was in The Giant Country Horns, so he was always out there on all those tours as well. I was also a fan of another great Burlington band, Viper House, and I had always wanted to play with Ray Paczkowski, their keyboard player. Ray joined the band around that time and we've had a real deep musical connection ever since. He's an incredible player.

2001 was a big tour - we were doing Plasma. We just kind of kept going out - 2002, 2003, 2004. Last year I scaled it back to a four-piece and we introduced some brand new songs, including "Backwards Down the Number Line," which of course ended up being the first song on the new Phish album. We played that song every night on that tour.

rey hits the road at the beginning of February for a month-long tour with Classic TAB, beginning with a special benefit show at the Jefferson Theatre in Charlottesville, VA on February 8th and continuing through February 28th.

Trey and Classic TAB features the same lineup from last fall, with the addition of horns back into the mix. A limited number of pre-sale tickets are available through Trey's online ticketing system now at http://treytickets.rlc.net. The presale ends tomorrow, Thursday, January 14th at 5:00pm ET. Tickets will go on sale to the public beginning Thursday, January 14th at 10:00am ET. For complete ticketing information, please visit http://www.trey.com.

TREY ANASTAIO & CLASSIC TAB TOURDATES

2/08 - Jefferson Theatre, Charlottesville, VA
2/09 - 9:30 Club, Washington, DC
2/11 - Electric Factory, Philadelphia, PA
2/12 - House of Blues, Boston, MA
2/13 - Oakdale Theatre, Wallingford, CT
2/14 - Count Basie Theatre, Red Bank, NJ
2/16 - Terminal 5, New York, NY
2/18 - The Pabst Theater, Milwaukee, WI
2/19 - Riviera Theatre, Chicago, IL
2/20 - State Theatre, Minneapolis, MN
2/21 - Uptown Theatre, Kansas City, MO
2/23 - The Pageant, St. Louis, MO
2/25 - Ryman Auditorium, Nashville, TN
2/26 - The Fillmore, Charlotte, NC
2/27 - Tabernacle, Atlanta, GA
2/28 - Tennessee Theatre, Knoxville, TN