[Guitar] Chris Rea - (2004) The Blue Jukebox

On the twisty, slippery road to appreciating Jazz, I think Chris Rea will be a big help to us. His career took a radical turn a few years ago when he decidedly moved away from popular music. This album, to my mind one of the best he recorded in his transitional phase, is the perfect link for us between smokey voiced 'bad guy' Blues like Calvin Russell and Jazz.

Chris Rea - The Blue Jukebox
Guitar - 2004
1 CD - 13 tracks
Total running time: 1:06:56

Chris adds a taste of Jazz to The Blues in this CD where he growls in a deep, smokey voice with his usual strong bass line and slide guitar licks but in a more laid back, reflective mood.

Chris Rea's career

Most people probably know Chris Rea as the guy you hear on the radio every year around Christmas time with his Driving Home for Christmas. People who were alive and in contact with the world in the 80s will know him as the artist behing big popular hits like The Road to Hell, Auberge, Josephine, Looking for the Summer... After his initial huge success, he disappeared completely in the 90s and produced some truely AWFUL albums.

His great comeback came in 2002 when he released Dancing down the Stony Road, recorded "live in the studio", i.e. one take tracks. Chris created his own record company called Jazzy Blue and released an extended version of that album with his new company. He has released a whole flurry of albums since, now having the freedom of release what and when he wants. The result is, in my opinion, a dramatic improvement in his music. He has now turned to a genre you could call "Dark Blues" and The Blue Jukebox is a great example of it.

Overall character of the album

Chris is faithful to his usual sound instrument-wise in this album: his voice, slide guitar, bass and a slow blues shuffle on the drums. The novelty is the appearance of a saxophone which occasionnally softly fills in between the guitar and the voice, adding a destinct Jazzy tone.

Athmosphere-wise, The Blue Jukebox is Dark Blues at its best. Technically, the music is simple, very rootsy, no ornaments, no excessive multiple tracking. Every sound you hear has its function and would be noticeably missed were it to be left out. The mood produced is slow, weary, dreamy. The album musically describes to perfection the feeling of "being blue". The difference to traditional Blues is that it's not the groans of someone trying to free himself of this unfortunate state of mind but simply a description of it and a much more expressive and moving description than words. The Blue Jukebox is a very accurate title for this CD: it is the sound of "blue".

Highlights of this CD

The most easily likeable track is certainly Long Is the Time and Hard Is the Road. Lyrically the song is quite similar to Chris's old hit The Road to Hell. He criticises the way society works, showing how fake and meaningless our way of living is, leading us to self negation. However, unlike the old hit, he doesn't express his anger and his wish to change this, he simply describes the sadness he feels towards the situation. Musically this is expressed by a strong, warm and slow bass line. The anger which used to be his screaming, screeching guitar, is replaced by a gently weaping slide guitar. I must say you have to give credit to Chris for his performance on guitar on this album. It takes a great deal of subtely to express deep sadness and yet keep the sound gentle and soft.

Steel River Blues is another of my favourites on this release. Musically it's quite similar to Long Is the Time... but underlines a certain fascination in the feeling of sadness. He speaks of "The only thing we never got to do
Kick away
Those Steel River Blues"
as if he was trapped in his sadness. As if he couldn't bear being happy, that he prefered staying in his familiar and gentle world of sadness.

The only song that expresses desire to escape the world of the Blues is Restless Soul. Contrary to all the other tracks, the rythm is punchy: the bass angrily beats a very restless rythm. You get the impression the person's soul is damned, condemned to be imprisonned in sadness: "Oh you gotta give somethin'
'Cos it screams and it cries
This restless soul"
The song ends with a really impressively well executed duo of saxophone and slide guitar.

Last words

I think this album is a great introduction to the bluesy/jazzy mood. In his lyrics, Chris often speaks of a "blue world" or "a little piece of blues" as if the blues could be sensed in every situation. Even in a happy event, you can catch a glimpse of sadness which you can be fascinated by, attracted by because of its familiarity giving you a sense of security.

The song Paint My Jukebox Blue offers a fatalistic but also humourous point of view on this. Confronted with a serious problem a person goes and even gratefully escapes to familiarity of the "blue world". In the song, the person decides to paint his jukebox blue which is a stupid thing to do really but, symbollically, very interesting: "Since you been gone
I've been wondering
What to do
I guess I'll paint
My Jukebox
Blue...."

Tracklist

No.	Title	Len.
1	The Beat Goes on	4:34
2	Long Is the Time Hard Is the Road	5:19
3	Let's Do It	5:04
4	Let It Roll	5:01
5	Steel River Blues	4:36
6	Somebody Say Amen	6:13
7	Blue Street	4:50
8	Monday Morning	4:07
9	Restless Soul	5:53
10	What Kind of Love Is This	6:39
11	Paint my Jukebox Blue	4:03
12	Baby Don't Cry	5:25
13	Speed	5:04

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Plans for the future

The start a a new year is the traditional time to make highly optimistic plans for the future so, for once, I will follow tradition and announce my resolutions... blog-wise of course.

The first record

With this musical guide still being in its nappies, I think I should shed some light on my blogging philosophy, notations I will use here, how I classify music by Genre etc. I also intend to diversify my posts in future and not only include album reviews and my thoughts on music but technical topics on using a computer as a music player and audio quality in general.

Blogging philosophy

Most of the posts will, of course, continue to be album reviews. For those, I will always use a post title of the form "[genre] artist - (release year) - album title". Therefore you'll be able to tell immediately when browsing the archives, which posts are reviews and which are other kinds of information. On the index page and on archive pages, you'll find only introductions to the various articles. The full articles are available through the "Read more..." links or through clicking the post titles. To move back to the index page or an archive page from a post, you can use the "Back to MainPage" link or one of the archive links in the navigation bar.

For the album reviews, I use a very personal classification by Genre. The Genre of an album as well as being in the post title, is indicated next to the album cover in the short introduction to the review, the format of that being:
"artist - album title
[genre] - year
n° of CDs - total n° of tracks
total running time"

I associate a single genre for each artist. So an artist with extremely varied music will by classified by his most typical kind of music. The genres I use (on this guide and for my music collection) are the following:

• Blues
  Album by artists who predominantly play The Blues
• Classical
  Albums by artists who predominantly play Classical Music
• Country
  Albums by artists who predominantly play Country Music
• Electronic
  Albums by artists who predominantly play Electronic based music
• Flamenco
  Albums by artists who predominantly play Flamenco
• Jazz
  Albums by artists who predominantly play Jazz
• Mark
  Albums by Mark Knopfler or Dire Straits or The Notting Hillbillies or Mark Knopfler contributions with other artists
  
• Religious
  Albums by artists who play moody music, religious chorus and related things
• Soundtracks
  Film music (not classified by artist but by year and film title)
• Heavy
  Albums by artists who play loud music (Heavy Metal, Grunge, 1970s Rock, all that kind of stuff)
  
• Oldies
  Albums by artists with career peaks before 1980 and that don't fit in any of the above categories
• Guitar
  Albums by artists who have no specific genre (except Pop maybe) that are well-known for their skills on the guitar
• French
  General Pop artists related to France or sing in French
• German
  General Pop artists related to Germany or sing in German
• Italian
  General Pop artists related to Italy or sing in Italian
• Spanish
  General Pop artists related to Spain or sing in Spanish
• Pop
  Anything that doesn't fit in any of the above categories

I must stress that this list is in no way sufficient to classify all music but is well adapted to my tastes and therefore appropriate for using on this music guide.

Diversifying content

The step we will be taking in the album reviews is to move to some serious Jazz and Blues. I'll not only review albums I select in those genres, but also try and make a general introduction on Jazz and later on, on The Blues. I hope to explain what the whole point of those types of music is because they are often misunderstood. It is up to the listener to find for himself, a significance, a meaning in the music he listens to. Therefore, my views are not at all objective, but they are presented as an example of how you can appropriate music to make it mean something to you, even and especially when it's reputedly "geeky" or "intellectual" music.

Another area I plan to address is the technicalities of organising a fairly large music collection. The traditional Hifi set with CD player is no longer sufficient to allow comfortable listening because of the sheer amount music people possess these days. Therefore, many people turn to their computers to play back their music but soon give up when they see the desasterous sound quality their sound cards deliver and the amount of noise their cooling fans generate. I will try to propose solutions for these problems by presenting hardware, software, ripping and organizing methods and audio compression formats that will allow you to transform your computer into a convenient and high quality means of enjoying your music. My sources of information are, for most, listed in my "Links" section in the side bar on the index page.

Articles that I consider important (or that I'm proud of :-) ) will appear in the "Essential Posts" section of the side bar for quick access for those who missed them. Generally that will be news on this music guide, introductory articles, guides to audio hardware and software.

Interactivity

So much for the big plans and wishes for the future. I hope I'll be able to keep some promises. In any case, your comments are always welcome. The whole point of this music guide is to get people talking about their tastes in music and to make the "geeks" and "weirdos" speak up and let the "normal" people know what they are missing.

Suggestions, critics, general stupid remarks, ideas for a new Poll (side bar of the index page), everything's welcome and in any language! Garanteed without sensorship. :-)

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[Guitar] Calvin Russell - (1991) Sounds from the Fourth World

Let's move away from Mark Knopfler but stay in familiar territory with this second CD. This album also very guitar orientated but has a rawer, rootsier, more Texas/Country/Blues feel to it. A good prelude to the Blues up ahead in our reviews, while staying very melodic and accessible.

C.R. Sounds from the 4th World
Guitar - 1991
1 CD - 11 tracks
Total running time: 49:31

The pains and groans of a man hard done by life, brought to us by a deap, growly voice accompanied by a roughly strummed acoustic guitar and a heavily distorted electric guitar.

The artist & the album

The album's cover gives a pretty good impression of what Calvin Russell looks like and indeed, sounds like: rough, dirty, bitter, hardened by life. As far as I was able to find out, Calvin is from Texas, an ex-convict, and in general, a rather ragged fellow.

Now from that description, you might be expecting some typical 'bad guy' music but that's not to be found anywhere on this album at least. Calvin communicates his ideas quite subtely, using both musical and lyrical effects. However, unlike Mark's recent work, it stays very raw, with some rough, hard sounds and dark, bluesy melodies. I think the primary quality of this album is that it's honest: it's a real bloke who's been through a lot, telling us stories from his life without pretending to be something he isn't. So the music, just like the man, is rough around the edges, sometimes clumbsy but allthemore convincing for that very reason.

To his advantage, Calvin has a very deep growly voice which fits perfectly with the themes of his songs. Along with his rough, clumbsy acoustic guitar strumming and his howling, screaming electric guitar licks, it gives the album a very characteristic sound, a sound giving the ideas and the lyrics a certain credibility, a credibility one of these young kid superstars with their flashy shows and fancy tricks could never have.

A few favourite songs

The second track on the album is Last Night, the story of a guy who is obsessed with some woman and goes out looking for her in the bars at night to see what she's doing, who she's with. While the subject is neither very profound nor very original, the song is very nicely pieced together. The textures are good: rough and dirty as always with Calvin but they fit particularly well in this situation where an old, rough looking dog is running after some smart looking lady. The lyrics are quite vague but mention the important things like "Afraid I would find you, Afraid you couldn't be found" which is the typical thought you have when you're looking for someone. Finding her would be awkward and painful and not finding her would be just as bad because you wouldn't know where she is and start imagining the worst things. The details of the situation are not explained which allows everyone to interpret it how it suits him but the feelings are explained in detail: bitterness in the verse "The kind where you gotta dress right or they won't let you in" and pain and anger in "And you do the same damn thing to me". That last verse is one of the key moments in the song, the singing is particularly emotional and it's followed by a screaching, screaming lick on a heavily distorted electric guitar.

The next song, One Meat Ball, is one of my all time favourites when it comes to the 'Blues feel'. A poor fellow finds a dollar bill somewhere and wanders around restaurants to see what he can get to eat for 1 dollar. It turns out all he can get for that price is 1 meat ball. The situation is very silly but the thoughts racing through the little man's mind as he sits alone at his table and timidly orders his 1 meat ball aren't at all. Obviously, the waiter laughs at the poor guy when he takes the order and makes a big joke of it with the rest of the staff. There are two versions of this song on the album: acoustic with saxophone and an electric one. Each has its own qualities but the musical textures in both, wonderfully express how this little man sinks down deeper and deeper into his chair and into the floor in total humiliation, as the staff and the other guests in the restaurant laugh at him. That is, for me, the perfect example of what the Blues is about. Musically, the song hasn't got much to do with the Blues but the theme, a simple, everyday situation which emotionally turns into someone's worst nightmare, is the essence of any Blues song. One Meat Ball is the kind of song that makes you feel less ridiculous when you feel down just because the girl at the cash desk didn't say hello when you went shopping in the morning.

Calvin Russell's most successful song is Crossroads which is also on this album. It's a long acoustic thing which builds up to a dramatic solo at the end. The story is a guy standing at some crossroads wondering which road to take, an image for someone thinking over an important decision he has to take in life (just like that very tiresome Robert Frost poem, The Road not Taken). The voice is the star in this song. Calvin's deep, dark voice reflects the seriousness of the decisions to take in life, and the desasterous effects they can have. The voice is accompanied by a slow, reflective, acoustic riff all the way. The song ends with a magnificent acoustic guitar solo.

Tracklist

No.	Title	Len.
1	You're my Baby	3:45
2	Last Night	4:44
3	One Meat Ball	3:54
4	Crossroads	7:32
5	Maybe Someday	5:34
6	Rockin' the Republicans	4:40
7	Baby I Love You	2:21
8	Love Stealer	4:12
9	You Don't Know Me	5:07
10	Down Down Down	3:41
11	One Meat Ball (acoustic)	3:57

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[Mark] Mark Knopfler - (2004) Shangri-La

For a first review, I'll go for a nice, easy, melodic and accessible one that will also please all those who think I only listen to Mark stuff.

Mark Knopfler - Shangri-La
Mark - 2004
1 CD - 14 tracks
Total running time: 1:06:22

A relaxing, heart warming album telling us stories from the 60s. Mark sings in a new mellow voice accompanied by rootsy, acoustic rythms, punctuated by his usual smooth electric licks.

5:15 AM, the opener

The album kicks off with 5:15 AM, a track which, in itself, sets the atmosphere for the rest of the CD. The song starts with Mark lightly strumming his Les Paul. Soon, he starts singing in a dreamy, nostalgic voice. The song is the story of a miner coming home from his night shift, going past deserted schools and pubs on his bicycle in the wee hours of the morning. The scene is perfect for expressing thoughts about how coal mining affected the lives of simple people of northern England.

As the lonely miner's thoughts wander into darker and darker areas: a murder, the greed of the business men from the South, his family's desperate situation, the backing instruments gradually kick in, giving a stronger and more dramatic character to the song. This is a brilliant example of how music and lyrics work together. A minor chord rings out together with the word "Alone" in the verse "Together and alone" which in tern rhymes with "Paid the price of coal". You not only understand intellectually, through the lyrics, what is being said, you also feel the bitterness, the sentiment of betrayal the miner is expressing through the choice of chord and the rhyme.

Eventually, the backing disappears a we are left once again with Mark, alone, softly strumming his Les Paul. This is another great piece of composing: after the anger, the dramatic, tense middle part Mark reminds us, musically and lyrically, that this song is not about big companies, not about business men, not a bout greed and exploitation. It's about a simple man, alone, cycling back to his family after a night in the mine...

A pick of the rest

The album continues in the same style. Sucker Row, The Trawlerman's Song and Back to Tupelo are musically similar with an acoustic guitar in the background and occasional small riffs on the Les Paul in the foreground. They also have in common that they are all about opposites. Sucker Row is about the phenomena of people (suckers) in the US, sitting in rows in front of coin machines (such as the one featured on the CD cover) in the hope of making some easy money. While this behaviour is presented as pathetic, the song also suggests, very subtely, that these simple people are actually the most honest ones: "I never look down on a sucker stake; They all pay the bills". Back to Tupelo, my personal favourite of the album, has a similar subject: young talented musicians who are taken over by a desire to go to Hollywood. Words and music are perfectly adjusted in the chorus "Oh, it's a ways to go; Back to Tupelo" meaning 'Go for it, if you like, but the way back home is difficult'.

The Trawlerman's Song is a more up-tempo track with a strange mixture of melancholy and happiness: the story of a sailor and his journeys with his mates who simply wants to come home to his beloved. This song finishes on an intreeging outro where Mark sings a very light and cheerful "La la la" yet adding more than a touch of sadness with his guitar notes. This leaves everything very much open to your own free interpretation which is one of the best things about music.

The title track Our Shangri-La marks a turning point in the album. In Our Shangri-La and Everybody Pays, the Les Paul disappears and 'Spaghetti guitar' takes its place: the kind of sound you'd expect to hear in Western movies. Mark uses that kind of imagery to express other ideas. The album continues with more varied tracks but of equal quality and interest both musically and lyrically. I'll let you discover those on your own. I hope my views on the first tracks will insite you to analyse them in detail - they have lots of hidden subtleties

A word about the artist

Mark Knopfler is, of course, better known for his guitar hero days with Dire Straits. For those of you who know that, I urge you to listen to this album with an open mind. Do not expect impressive guitar solos, you will not find any.
For those who are not familiar with Mark's earlier work, simply enjoy (and comment!). I'm always fascinated to hear what people think of Mark when they start with his later work.

Tracklist

No.	Title	Len.
1	5:15 AM	5:54
2	Boom, Like That	5:49
3	Sucker Row	4:46
4	The Trawlerman's Song	5:02
5	Back to Tupelo	4:31
6	Our Shangri-La	5:41
7	Everybody Pays	5:24
8	Song for Sonny Liston	5:06
9	Whoop De Doo	3:53
10	Postcards from Paraguay	4:07
11	All That Matters	3:08
12	Stand up Guy	4:32
13	Donegan's Gone	3:05
14	Don't Crash the Ambulance	5:06

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Introduction

Hello World!

I will start by making a very bold statement:

This Blog has a purpose!

Now I know this is not the tradition among the blog community but I've always been an anti-conformist.

Anyhow, the purpose of this blog, as I've mentioned too many times already, is to provide no-nonsense album reviews to anyone remotely interested in music. I've seen too many people apparently content, listening again and again to the same mainstream tunes. Of course, jumping to the obscure word of Jazz or Classical Music is not easy and many feel discouraged. Mainstream stuff is nice because it's always available and you can always count on the fact that someone else is listening to it. However, it does horribly lack in diversity and expressiveness.

A crazed enthousiast's CD player

As mentionned, finding and appreciating "serious" music is a daunting task for most. CD reviews often target rather snobbish intellectuals who, by principle, reject all modern music. Don't worry, Piffles to the rescue. As one of the few who have had the luck of having relatives who know about music and also have time on their hands, I've been able to widen my musical horizons beyond what record companies would like me to be restrained to. I discovered that Blues, Jazz and Classical Music are fascinating areas of music and that younger generations can appreciate them just as well as popular music - albeit with a little effort - but well worth it in my opinion.

You will find the occasional Pop album in the reviews (As I said, I'm not against Pop, I'm just against ignoring all other music) and expect to find quite a few guitar albums, especially by Mark Knopfler of whom I am a big fan. I'll also include the most accessible, most melodic Classical and Jazz albums and gradually move on to the more technical, slighly more obscure stuff. The world of music is a big place and you have to start slowly.

I'm not an altruist so I'm also hoping to get some feedback on the music, get to know what everybody else listens to and maybe get lost on a few new musical roads.

Merry browsing!

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