music

By MARK BROWN
Scripps Howard News Service
Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Summer's closing in and there's a long list of big music releases ready to heat up the months ahead. A look at some of the sounds that will be making the rounds:

R Kelly

"Double Up," May 29

-- The buzz: A rocky start, with the first single peaking at No.

By MARK BROWN
Scripps Howard News Service
Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Some dates during the year dubbed the Summer of Love, which saw thousands flock to San Francisco to be part of the scene:

_ Jan.

By MARK BROWN
Scripps Howard News Service
Tuesday, May 29, 2007

The Summer of Love's soundtrack was issued on June 1, 1967. Within days, Jimi Hendrix was playing his own version of "Sgt.

By CHUCK CAMPBELL
Scripps Howard News Service
Monday, May 21, 2007

"VOLTA, Bjork (Elektra/Atlantic)

Bjork states the obvious on her new release "Volta" when she sings, "I feel at home whenever the unknown surrounds me." Of course, in trademark Bjork fashion, the full context of this observation offered on the track "Wanderlust" is that the Icelandic performer has divorced herself from humanity and exiled herself to the sea to be "held by ocean's paws." But the basic sentiment rings true that she loves embracing unprecedented adventure.

"Volta" is Bjork's most accessibly weird journey since she first embarked on a solo career away from the Sugarcubes more than a decade ago.

By JOEL SELVIN
San Francisco Chronicle
Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Allen Toussaint never left New Orleans. He spent virtually his entire distinguished career playing piano, singing, writing songs and making records with other people in recording studios in New Orleans. Until Katrina.

"I just never found any reason to leave," says the impeccably attired Toussaint, sitting in his hotel room before a performance in San Francisco. "... Everything I hold dearest to me is in New Orleans, including the feeling, and the walk down the street and the way you wake up in the morning.... I get homesick at the airport on the way out."

As impossible as it is to imagine New Orleans without Allen Toussaint, the grand master of the city's immense musical heritage has been living in a tall building on the west side of midtown Manhattan since he left town in the wake of the flood almost two years ago. Still, he goes back every couple of weeks while he rebuilds his home.

But after having spent almost 50 years behind the scenes on classic R&B records, developing one of the most distinctly personal bodies of work in the annals of pop, drawing deeply from the endless fountain of New Orleans musical lore, the soft-spoken, uncommonly gracious Southern gentleman finds himself in the spotlight for essentially the first time in his career.

Before Hurricane Katrina, his live performances were almost exclusively limited to his annual show at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, backed by 12- or 16-piece bands made up of his crack studio sidemen, a group he could never afford to take anywhere else. Until last year, he hadn't toured since he played piano with '50s New Orleans rock 'n' roll duo Shirley & Lee ("Let the Good Times Roll") for several months when Ike was still president. He spent his career in recording studios in New Orleans.

But practically the minute he hit New York in 2005, all of that changed. Right off, he served as musical director of an all-star New Orleans benefit at Madison Square Garden. Within days of that, he was writing songs with one of that evening's guest stars, Elvis Costello. They followed their 2006 joint album, "The River in Reverse," with a cross-country tour that included a triumphant performance before a crowd of 70,000 at the Bonnaroo Festival in Tennessee. Toussaint also led the band at the end of last year's Grammy telecast, playing his "Yes We Can" alongside Costello, Bruce Springsteen and U2's The Edge, in the first prime-time TV appearance of his life. In New York, he has been holding down a prestigious nightclub engagement, playing Sunday brunch once a month at Joe's Pub in Greenwich Village.

For Toussaint, 69, a musician who has spent his life in the studio, performing his music outside New Orleans has been a revelation. He expresses surprise at how well the crowds know his music and the songs he hears requested ("Things I haven't thought about since the day we recorded them," he says).

"One other thing that's really interesting is the instant gratification of what you're doing," he says, "as opposed to me being in the studio and waiting for the red light, for the record to come out to see how it happens, whether they play it enough. But here you play something and there the people are. Right there. That is something else. It's a lovable situation."

Toussaint made his recording debut almost 50 years ago, fittingly enough, playing piano on a Fats Domino record while the Fat Man himself was touring Australia or some such place. He wrote and produced hit records on lightly comic New Orleans R&B classics such as "Ooh Poo Pah Doo" by Jesse Hill, "Mother-in-Law" by Ernie K-Doe or "Fortune Teller" by Benny Spellman. His long association with great New Orleans vocalist Lee Dorsey, who made his living running a body and fender shop, produced extraordinary records over the course of more than 10 years, including "Working In a Coalmine," "Yes We Can," and "Get Out of My Life, Woman."

Although he remained all but entirely unknown to the general public, despite a few brilliant solo albums in the '70s that never rose above cult status, his work has always been highly regarded among other musicians. The Band and Paul McCartney sought Toussaint's services for their recordings, but they had to come to New Orleans to work with him.

Toussaint says most of his musicians have returned to New Orleans now. One got married and moved to Massachusetts, he says, but comes back frequently.

"He misses the shrimp po'boys, I guess," Toussaint says.

He doesn't know how long it will take to move back to New Orleans. He has decided to completely demolish his home and rebuild on the site. His was one of the lucky neighborhoods. In Gentilly, where he lives, Toussaint says, people are staying in trailers in their front yards and rebuilding their homes, often by themselves. Other neighborhoods, not so lucky, remain abandoned.

He won't even say that he is going to continue with his newfound touring schedule.

"I can't say that, because once I get my place back in order in New Orleans ... I just don't know right now. I'd like to reserve that option."

(E-mail Joel Selvin at jselvin(at)sfchronicle.com)

By CHUCK CAMPBELL
Scripps Howard News Service
Monday, May 14, 2007

"THE REMINDER," Feist (Cherry Tree/Interscope)

Greatness eludes Feist on "The Reminder." That might or might not bother her, and therein lies the problem.

Like many gifted performers, Leslie Feist creates her own world. Yet it's hard to get a read on her as she flaunts her range and exercises her impulses. Her mysterious and mercurial persona only makes her more of a stranger with every track.

The Canadian transplant to France was more accessible a couple of years ago with her solo debut "Let It Die," which showed the sometime-Broken Social Scene vocalist to be an eccentric lounge singer.

Working again with collaborator Chilly Gonzales, Feist occasionally revisits that swell vibe on "The Reminder," as on such new tracks as the luminescent "How My Heart Behaves" and the resonant "My Moon My Man," where she channels her most romantic coo into the chorus: "Take it slow, take it easy on me."

The piano plays a key role on "Brandy Alexander," an inviting, if not enchanting, excursion into snapped-rhythm cool, and Feist layers textured vocals into "The Limit to Your Love" to create a blended air of sweetness and standoffishness.

The singer branches out more on "The Reminder" than she did on "Let It Die," and her eclecticism need not be a liability: They don't come much more eclectic, or top-selling, than Gwen Stefani.

Unfortunately, "The Reminder's" diversity often sounds pretentious.

Her cutesy vocals may dovetail with the banjo, pulsing bass and clapping hands of "1234" for serviceable whim, but her jaunt through the raw, country-rock-accented "Past in Present" sounds disingenuous. Meanwhile, "I Feel It All" seems to want to be a breezy song with ornate breaks, though the arrangement is too modest for its complicated aspirations. Also, the undercooked "Intuition" and nondescript "The Park" are needless indulgences in acoustic-guitar blandness.

"Sea Lion Woman," a traditional chant once covered by Nina Simone, might be the best test of Feist's fan base: Those who relate to the hodgepodgery of quirky electronics, claps, rock breaks and backing choir probably won't have a problem with the remainder of "The Reminder."

Those who hesitate will have to cherry-pick through the tracks.

Rating (five possible): 3

"A TRIBUTE TO JONI MITHCELL," various acts (Nonesuch)

Tribute albums invariably disappoint, so it's no surprise the superstar lineup on "A Tribute to Joni Mitchell" isn't able to buck the status quo.

Regardless of their quality, tribute songs fall into two categories: the reinvention and the faithful rendition. The former tends to put off fans of the artist being honored, while the latter tends to make listeners wonder why they aren't just listening to the original works.

"A Tribute to Joni Mitchell" looks at Mitchell from both sides, though it's worth noting there's no cover of "Both Sides Now," which she penned and recorded and which also became a Top 10 hit for Judy Collins in the late 1960s.

Some other expected songs do surface, however, including "Free Man in Paris," "Blue," "River" and "Help Me." The track list plus the contributing artists -- James Taylor, Emmylou Harris, Bjork, Prince, Annie Lennox, Sarah McLachlan and others -- could get the hearts pounding of many music lovers who might have forgotten how these things usually turn out.

Mitchell's timeless works are imbued with rare poetry and these are top-shelf performers paying homage, so nothing really awful emerges in the compilation. Still, "A Tribute to Joni Mitchell" gets off to an inauspicious start with Sufjan Stevens' self-consciously quirky take on "Free Man in Paris" -- easily the worst track in the bunch -- and it doesn't help that two of the next three tracks find Bjork in electronic-nymph mode (on "The Boho Dance") and jazz pianist Brad Mehldau punting Mitchell's lyrics altogether (on an instrumental version of "Don't Interrupt the Sorrow").

Mitchell is treated more reverentially as the release rolls on -- Prince's showy cover of "A Case of You" sounds both elegant and heartfelt, and Elvis Costello embodies affectionate sophistication on "Edith and the Kingpin." Also, Lennox and k.d. lang, who possess two of the purest and most gorgeous voices in contemporary music, shine on "Ladies of the Canyon" and "Help Me," respectively. And Taylor's closing cover of "River" is what anyone might expect it to be -- understated and moving.

Yet under the circumstances, the songs can't help but be out of context. This isn't "Court and Spark Part 2" or "More Hissing of Summer Lawns." It's a collection of disparate performers having little flings.

"A Tribute to Joni Mitchell" is amusing, but if you want to hear a good Joni Mitchell song, make sure she's the one singing.

Rating: 3-1/2

"YOUNG GALAXY," Young Galaxy (Arts & Crafts)

The Montreal indie universe keeps expanding, now with Stars spawning Young Galaxy.

At the center of the spacey new project is former Stars guitarist Stephen Ramsay, who formed the act with his girlfriend, Catherine McCandless. With help from a full slate of guest performers, Young Galaxy is in a similar orbit with many of Montreal's other adult-pop bands. The duo's self-titled debut is dreamy and accessible but, in what seems to be a prerequisite for groups from the city, stubbornly flawed. Like its predecessors -- including Stars -- Young Galaxy comes up short on sheen and limited by the act's narrow talents.

For some, that only enhances to the charm. For most, it makes the group's music feel as enduring as a Quebecoise summer.

"Young Galaxy" isn't adequately sharp to position the act as a genre-defining band. The philosophical lyrics aren't poignant enough to break it out (a la 1980s-era Tears for Fears), and the shimmering veneer isn't rich enough to make it the next Cocteau Twins.

Yet Ramsay and McCandless would likely be happy if they could just pay their bills with a "Young Galaxy" that leans too heavily on Ramsay's shaky vocals and arrangements that invite distraction.

Fortunately, prolonged exposure creates a mildly intoxicating air, the singing is oddly soothing, and the motto-packed lyrics are effective.

The music is alternately fizzy and fluffy -- "Lost in the Call" is an aural equivalent of a slow-motion sandstorm, "Lazy Religion" is a keyboard-based mellow anthem, and "Searchlight" is inflated with airy pep. Also, surreal hypnosis results from the spacious sparseness of "The Sun's Coming Up and My Plane's Going Down."

Still, Young Galaxy sometimes sounds like its making music just to amuse itself -- going on a clumsy tangent of stitching together subtleties and grandiosity on "Come and See" and pitting hollow vocal treatments in synth swells wrapped in a humming mask on "The Alchemy Between Us." Such miscues, combined with Ramsay's ho-hum voice, reveal Young Galaxy's growing pains.

Rating: 3-1/2

By RICK MASSIMO
The Providence Journal
Friday, May 11, 2007

Billy Gilman still lives in Hope Valley, R.I. "I could've moved to Nashville many times, but I want to keep my sanity," he says.

At 18, Gilman does interviews on his own these days. His agent-manager, Angela Bacari, doesn't hover over the questions and finish his answers. But she's still very much on Gilman's team, if not as visible. And the singer who burst onto the country scene at age 11 with "One Voice" is being interviewed in his grandparents' house in Hope Valley, where he still lives (across the street from his parents), with his mother in the next room.

That's how it's gone for Gilman since sliding into majority (he turns 19 May 24): A few things have changed, but nothing too drastic.

The most important change is that Gilman is currently without a record contract, having fulfilled a two-record deal with the Nashville-based independent Image Music Group. And while that can be scary ("It's like I'm just starting out again"), he seems confident at the same time.

"I'm in the last of the teen years, and I want to (go) slowly," says Gilman. "And if I don't do as many concerts as I did before, that's OK. ...

"Now, it's up to me. Now I'm almost 19 and have been in the business for almost 10 years. It's my choice. Instead of my parents writing the signature on the contract, it's me. And slowly I'm getting to that point where I'm saying, 'I'm going to do this.' "

After bursting onto the national scene with the "One Voice" album in 2000, which sold more than 1 million copies and got him a Grammy nomination, and following it up with the gold-selling "Dare to Dream" the next year, Gilman dropped nearly out of sight for more than two years while his voice changed. It was an unusually difficult transition, and it took a toll on Gilman. But he says he's come out the other side. And he's got a different perspective.

"I had to take time to grow up. Because if you look at the pattern of a lot of young stars, not that it's a bad thing, but a lot of them burn out."

Passing the age-18 milestone was significant for Gilman, but not nearly as big as the move from the giant Sony Nashville record label.

While Image, who put out 2005's "Everything and More" and last year's "Billy Gilman," didn't have the same kind of promotional muscle to back Gilman's records, what the company gave him was freedom.

"When I was with Sony, it was like, 'OK, you show up, you learn this song and you sing it.' If I really didn't want to sing it -- 'No, I'm really not singing that song' -- they'd listen. But if I said, 'Put this fiddle up here,' or 'Put the steel guitar up here,' they wouldn't listen. ... Now I can choose what I want to sing, who I want in my team."

Without "the kid factor," Gilman wondered whether his appeal would fall in the cracks, as young-adult listeners so often tune out former child stars. But he says he recently did an arena show for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, with whom he's been affiliated for years, that set his mind at ease.

"That's a tough crowd for me. ... (But) I went out there with a new sense of 'I'm ready.' Because I have songs for them now that they can relate to. And I got a standing ovation, and I thought, 'Now, that says something.' Because they listen to, I'm sure, rap and rock and pop. So for me to get the reaction I did from them said that it spoke something to them."

He says Rhode Island is where he wants to stay, but he also might throw a career curveball soon: He's auditioned for a production of "Grease" in New York and is waiting to hear the results. It's not exactly country music, but Gilman said the experience was fun.

Where once Gilman caused a stir because he was a kid, now the stir is because he's no longer a kid. Does he look forward to the day when no one will give a hoot how old he is?

"Yes!"

By CHUCK CAMPBELL
Scripps Howard News Service
Monday, May 07, 2007

"SPIDER-MAN 3" SOUNDTRACK, various acts (Record Collection)

The gravity of the "Spider-Man 3" soundtrack is ridiculous. Mopey song after mopey song lumbers by, burdening the collection with more weight than is on soundtracks for "Babel," "Crash" and "Brokeback Mountain."

Everyone knows Spider-Man is based on a comic book, right? Still, regardless of the perceived validity of the drama of the title character's internal strife, the marketing strategy of the "Spider-Man 3" soundtrack is anything but absurd.

The collection is brimming with new songs by modern rock's power players and buzz bands. Other than a wildly out of place Chubby Checker (doing "The Twist"), the lineup is relevant to 2007 and for the most part relishing the angst.

Snow Patrol kicks off the compilation with the sprawling histrionics of "Signal Fire," followed by The Killers even more earnest "Move Away," followed by the gritty tumult of Yeah Yeah Yeahs' "Sealings" followed by Wolfmother's more blistering "Pleased To Meet You."

And so on.

It seems like no one is going to take a breather until the Flaming Lips surface with a quirky diversion _ "The Supreme Being Teaches Spider-Man How to Be in Love" _ that dutifully sounds important but clearly gets the basic premise of Spider-Man. Unfortunately, Simon Dawes' subsequent "Scared of Myself" dials the mood back to dour.

There's another splash of levity in Coconut Records' whimsical "Summer Day," but the soundtrack then dives into Jet's string-backed seriousness ("Falling Star"), Sounds Under Radio's sweeping "Portrait of a Summer Thief," The WYO's self-conscious "A Letter To St. Jude" and The Oohlas' chugging closer, "Small Parts."

Aside from the overwrought "Scared of Myself," all of the songs are well executed _ especially the Wolfmother and Sounds Under Radio cuts. Yet regardless of the individual strength of the tracks, when bundled together they are simply dispiriting.

Rating (five possible): 3

"THIS IS RYAN SHAW," Ryan Shaw (One Haven/RED)

Wasn't Ryan Shaw on "American Idol"? That's an assumption many will make when they encounter "This Is Ryan Shaw." In true "Idol" tradition, the 26-year-old singer mimics beloved legends on his new release, recalling those embarrassing segments on the reality show in which the contestants are forced to imitate icons, and it ultimately just feels dirty and like everyone (the producers, the singers, the audience) should be ashamed of themselves.

In a way, "This Is Ryan Shaw" is worse than "Idol's" indiscretions. Shaw and producers Jimmy Bralower and Johnny Gale "doctor"/reinvent songs by the likes of Wilson Pickett ("I Found a Love"), Bobby Womack ("Lookin' for a Love") and Jackie Wilson ("I'll Be Satisfied"), sweetening the mix and laying down Shaw's shrieks where the original shrieks would be.

The guy from Decatur, Ga., can belt, no question about it. And if the shouting by Pickett and Womack was considered soulful back in the 1960s, it may not seem fair to dismiss Shaw as gimmicky.

But he is, for the same reason that no one writes in Shakespearean English anymore.

"This Is Ryan Shaw" has kitsch appeal for a few songs _ such as the old-school (ancient-school) rollicking soul "dance" tracks "Do the 45," "I Do the Jerk" and "Mish Mash." Plus sometimes there's something going on to deflect Shaw's histrionics, including a swaying cadence on "I Found a Love" and harmonious backing vocals on "Lookin' for a Love." And Shaw and company even come up with three original tracks, though they're all derivative.

Yet the singer's ridiculous button-pushing is nearly unflagging, apart from his gearing down to reflect Wilson's more gentle delivery on a version of "I'll Be Satisfied," and his wails are hammy enough to make John Legend blush.

If "This Is Ryan Shaw" is truly a well-intended reaction to the hip-hop-ification of R&B, then Shaw deserves another chance. But if it's merely a mercenary move in response to "American Idol's" shtick, then he needs to go away.

Rating: 2-1/2

"SPELLS," The Comas (Vagrant)

Resist the temptation to compare The Comas to other modern garage-pop bands and instead consider them more akin to older acts like the Smashing Pumpkins and Pixies, groups that found ways to infuse beautiful melodies into the most bracing of contexts.

Such comparisons are even more appropriate for The Comas' new "Spells," a heavier and more psychedelic venture than the New York band's acclaimed 2004 release, "Conductor."

The group doesn't figure to be a multi-platinum breakout _ no one does these days, particularly not anyone on a small label _ but The Comas' accessibly quirky sense of adventure at least rates a devoted following.

Recorded with producer Bill Racine (The Flaming Lips, Rogue Wave) in the snowy Catskills, "Spells" lives up to its name as the bulk of its tracks unleash a measure of mesmerism.

The fuzzrock "Red Microphones" is a persuasive opener, but the group's founding duo Andy Herod and Nicole Gehweiler create more dramatic turns as they roll along.

The poppy drama of "Hannah T." (who has "a telepathic aftertaste") erupts into careening chaos, while on "Sarah T." the pair sings over somber, muscular rhythms reminiscent of Depeche Mode, and Herod charges through the distorted storm of "New Wolf" with the mantra, "I wanna be the new wolf!" Also, the grandiose blur of "Now I'm a Spider" eventually sways into an unlikely, yet deliciously effective, kind of anthem rock, and the electric bulldozer that is "Come My Sunshine" is a great song for driving with a purpose (i.e. navigating through rush hour, not tooling around on a lazy Sunday afternoon).

The Comas do lose themselves in the harsh wash of sound on the sonic bender "Light the Pad," and the slow cut "Thistledown" doesn't benefit from its excess of bombast, but when the band asks, "Was it all that you could stand?" on the acoustic-based closer "After the Afterglow," many listeners will be thinking they could stand a little more.

Rating: 3-1/2