If you’ve followed Shooter Jennings’ short musical career or listened to his satellite radio show, you’d know that he likes to mix it up a bit from time to time. “Black Ribbons,” the first album to feature Shooter’s new band, Hierophant, is a loose love story set against a futuristic Orwellian government steeped in censorship and truth cover-ups. With narration by Stephen King, it’s all very spooky, heavy, psychedelic, and well, pretty damn good. And while it isn’t breaking any molds, it’s already one of the more exciting albums to debut this year.
]]>Pater Gabriel “Scratch My Back”tag:thecornernews.com,2010:index.php/music_n_movies/5.97572010-03-11T16:42:48Z2010-03-11T17:57:49ZCarla Nelsoncmerrill@thecornernews.comPater Gabriel “Scratch My Back” Standouts - “Heroes,” “The Power of the Heart”
For “Scratch,” Gabriel hit on two conceits: He not only banished percussion but also rock’s other great crutch: guitars. More, he pushed aside his own writing to concentrate on the songs of others. Gabriel plucked material from the kind of forward-thinking contemporaries you’d expect (Bowie, Paul Simon, Talking Heads), as well from some ambitious, younger artists you might not (Arcade Fire, the Magnetic Fields, Bon Iver). In a sense, he’s “acting” the songs, emphasizing the lyrics in ways that illuminate all the nuances, some previously hidden. Gabriel’s take on “Heroes” may lack Bowie’s grandeur, but it has its own hushed and broken urgency. His version of Lou Reed’s “The Power of the Heart” brings a beauty to the melody its minimalist author couldn’t hope to.
]]>Cash keeps memory alivetag:thecornernews.com,2010:index.php/music_n_movies/5.97562010-03-11T16:38:11Z2010-03-11T17:41:12ZCarla Nelsoncmerrill@thecornernews.com
In the last few years of his life, Cash teamed with producer Rick Rubin, known for producing everyone from the Beastie Boys to Tom Petty, for a series of albums showcasing Cash’s uncanny ability to take great American songs and turn them into his own.
Now, nearly seven years after his demise, the final chapter in this astounding series has been released, titled “American VI: Ain’t No Grave.” The title cut opens the album with the statement “Ain’t no grave/can hold this body down.” I’m not sure about his body, but it is a statement of fact that no grave will hold Johnny Cash’s spirit down, as this wonderful album underscores again and again.
Covering songs from Sheryl Crow, Kris Kristofferson, Tom Paxton, and others, many will be recognizable as standards in American folk repetoire. But Cash puts his inimitable stamp on all of them, even the Hawaiian classic that closes the album, “Aloha Oe.”
Cash’s voice is in fine form, with an amazing band that includes Benmont Tench and Mike Campbell from the Heartbreakers and two of the Avett Brothers. He sings with deep emotion on songs like “Cool Water,” “Can’t Help But Wonder Where I’m Bound,” and his only writing contribution to the album “I Corinthians 15:55,” and with a delightful playfulness on tunes like “For The Good Times,” and “I Don’t Hurt Anymore.”
The result is a hauntingly beautiful and memorable album, a fitting epitaph for one of the greatest musicians of our time.
Hear Wildman Steve’s Internet radio station, Internet radio for music lovers 24/7, at www.wildmansteve.com.
]]>‘Alice’ through a drearier looking glasstag:thecornernews.com,2010:index.php/music_n_movies/5.96822010-03-05T18:25:52Z2010-03-05T19:29:53ZCarla Nelsoncmerrill@thecornernews.com
Working from Linda Woolverton's very Hollywood screenplay adaptation of Lewis Carroll's classic tale, Burton shifts the story from a child Alice to a near-adult Alice, viewing her journey through a drearier, more dangerous looking-glass.
We glimpse the prim, Victorian child of Carroll's tale in the film's opening as she's awakens from what sounds like her trip to Wonderland. Her father tells her that her deranged dreams do indeed mean she's bonkers, but he assures, "All the best people are."
It's a neat line and it's at the heart of Burton's 3-D version of Carroll's beloved book, which also draws heavily from its sequel, "Through the Looking-Glass." It was shot in 2-D, but transferred to 3-D afterward, and its effects are more distracting than spectacular.
One does, though, get a bit queasy hearing of such classics "updated" as if they're local TV newscasts.
The film quickly fast forwards 13 years and Alice (played by the startlingly promising Mia Wasikowska, who previously impressed watchers of HBO's "In Treatment"), is lured back to Wonderland by the familiar, punctually paranoid rabbit (voiced by Michael Sheen).
She flees a white and pastel-colored reality (where she is being arranged with great orchestration to marry a man she disdains) and falls down the hole, which sits at the base of a tree that could very well be the same one from Burton's "Sleepy Hollow."
Alice doesn't remember her last trip to Wonderland. This time, the plot is similar, but slightly different. It's Underland, not Wonderland. The tea party is more faded and ramshackle. Alice is beset by questions that she's "the wrong Alice."
This Alice is far from Carroll's. Where the Alice of the 1865 book is confused and essentially on a journey of self-discovery, Burton's Alice is more sure of herself. The exchange with the smoking blue caterpillar (voiced by Alan Rickman) is less "Who-o-o are you-o-o?" and more about Alice proving herself — to the caterpillar and everyone else.
"This is my dream. I make the path," she says.
Burton's "Alice" reflects today's times more than Carroll's era. There's triumph over the "dominion over living things" practiced by the cruel, bigheaded Red Queen (a brilliantly thin-skinned Helena Bonham Carter), and there's Alice's girl power. By the end, she confidently returns to begin, of all things, a business endeavor in China.
The take-home lesson of Carroll's tale is something quite different. It's not fuel for upright adulthood, but "the simple and loving heart of her childhood."
Burton's film is not lacking whimsy. Much of its design is wonderfully imaginative — surely the biggest draw of the movie. Credit also goes to the visual effects of Ken Ralston and the costumes of Colleen Atwood. There are elegant moments — the overhead shot of Alice shrinking into the billows of her dress, or the great, big slobbering tongue of the beastly Bandersnatch. The incredibly tweaky March Hare (voiced by Paul Whitehouse) is also a joy.
But Burton has beefed up the original story so that it feels less personal and more like the many action films about young, maturing heroes who must slay a giant villain. Danny Elfman's score keeps the mood dark.
The Cheshire Cat (voiced by Stephen Fry) — whose handling is normally tantamount — passes curiously without energy, like a bow made out of courtesy.
And then there's the Mad Hatter, a role so befitting Johnny Depp (working with Burton for the seventh time) that it might seem too obvious for him. There is a trace of the been-there-done-that to Depp's somewhat rootless performance, but wishing for him to cut back on playing mad clowns would be like telling Fred Astaire to quit all that dancing.
The many moving parts — Anne Hathaway slides nicely into Burton-world as the White Queen, Crispin Glover plays the Knave of Hearts — nevertheless add up to less than a good "Alice." The 1933 version with Cary Grant and W.C. Fields may still take the cake.
Though Burton's film boasts some excellent performances, as the caterpillar says to our heroine, it's merely "almost Alice."
]]>Multi-talented musician soars with ‘Wings’tag:thecornernews.com,2010:index.php/music_n_movies/5.96082010-03-02T20:49:30Z2010-03-02T21:55:31ZCarla Nelsoncmerrill@thecornernews.com
His songs have been performed and recorded by Jimmy Buffett, Little Feat, Jack Ingram and Todd Snider, to name a few. He was awarded the coveted “Instrumentalist of the Year” at the Americana Awards in 2004, he led his first band, Will and the Bushmen, to a major label deal. He produced a Grammy-nominated album for Adrienne Young as well as highly acclaimed albums for Angela Easterling, Todd Snider, Daddy and others, and has toured with Rodney Crowell, Todd Snider and others.
Kimbrough has released five albums with Will and the Bushmen, Daddy, and the Bis-quits. In addition, he’s released four previous solo efforts, all of which have been critically acclaimed.
Now, Kimbrough has released his fifth solo album, “Wings,” another album destined for the mantle of success. Interestingly enough, the title cut is a tune co-written by Jimmy Buffett, and is one of several of Kimbrough’s tunes that will be included on Buffett’s upcoming release, “Buffett Hotel.”
Kimbrough shares writing credit with several fine songwriters on “Wings,” including Jeff Finlan, Sara Kelley, Dave Zobl, Irene Kelley and Todd Snider. The album is based in classic folk rock, and explores much more in the themes surrounding the conflicts between career and family, work and love, parents and children, cool and uncool, and ultimately, life and death.
An artist that has never come up short when it comes to great songs and great performances, “Wings” is yet another example of how high Will Kimbrough can soar with his music.
Hear Wildman Steve’s Internet radio station, Internet radio for music lovers 24/7, at http://www.wildmansteve.com.
]]>Musical truth and taboostag:thecornernews.com,2010:index.php/music_n_movies/5.96072010-03-02T20:46:11Z2010-03-02T21:49:12ZCarla Nelsoncmerrill@thecornernews.com
What makes Dan Reeder so freaky is that he actually makes music for himself, records it himself in a makeshift studio, uses homemade instruments, and is not afraid to be totally blunt about what irritates him about life. When John Prine heard a demo of songs that eventually became his first album, he signed Reeder to his “Oh Boy” label immediately and released his debut in 2004.
What Prine heard that compelled him to sign Reeder to a label contract was the same honesty, the same irreverence, the same sense of humor that Prine has always embodied.
Now “Oh Boy” has released Reeder’s third album, titled “This New Century,” which continues his streak of brilliantly constructed albums of simple, meaningful, and often hilarious tunes. Reeder hits you right off the bat with “Bitch Nation,” an ode to the apathetic attitude of a current generation, stated succinctly in the lyric “She hears the rumors of famines and wars as she sleeps with the TV on.” This is followed by “James Brown Is Dead and Gone,” which speaks to the inevitable fate we all eventually face, an issue that is addressed several times within the album, most humorously on “Angels May,” which suggests “they may feed you ravioli right out of the can.”
Reeder also addresses everyday truths to which many can relate in songs like “Everybody Wants A Cookie” and the epic “She Won’t Even Blow,” an accapella tune that, well, speaks for itself. All in all, “This New Century” is an honest, amusing, and at times deeply moving effort from a truly great artist not afraid to delve into taboos and truth.
Hear Wildman Steve’s Internet radio station, Internet radio for music lovers 24/7, at wildmansteve.com.
]]>‘Cop Out’ falls shy of its inspirationstag:thecornernews.com,2010:index.php/music_n_movies/5.96062010-03-02T20:40:58Z2010-03-02T21:42:59ZCarla Nelsoncmerrill@thecornernews.com
They play our paired police-detectives Paul Hodges and Jimmy Monroe, respectively-and they might as well be in different movies. Willis, a veteran of cop films like the “Die Hard” films and most recently “Surrogates,” is our unmistakable straight man. Almost charmingly, he's actually trying to solve crimes.
Hodges, however, is a parody. Realism is far in the rearview whenever Morgan is on screen and one can’t help wondering how his partner-let alone his wife (Rashida Jones)-can treat a cartoon so much like a human.
Director Kevin Smith gives Morgan, the former “Saturday Night Live” cast member and current “30 Rock” co-star, copious room to let loose. He’s the kind of comedian who's naturally funny; bottling him would be foolish.
For better and worse, “Cop Out” is his film. Morgan rattles off movie quotes (everything from “Training Day” to “The Color Purple”), disguises himself in a cell phone costume, wildly vacillates emotionally, uses cute words like “nincompoop” and occasionally spouts comically lucid definitions like a human Wikipedia.
Though handled awkwardly, the plot is simple. Hodges and Monroe, partners for nine years, are Brooklyn detectives who encounter a Mexican drug gang.
Following an incident, their badges are revoked for a month by their captain (the good, sometimes typecast Sean Cullen). A valuable baseball card of Monroe's is stolen and traced back to the gang.
This plot line unbelievably mixes with one involving Monroe’s daughter’s impending wedding. Divorced, his ex-wife (Francine Swift) has found a wealthy, arrogant second husband (Jason Lee) who is offering to pay for the daughter's wedding. Played by Michelle Trachtenberg, the daughter is asking Monroe for a $48,000 wedding-making her more a villain than the lethal drug gang.
The detectives’ pursuit ropes in an amateurish burglar (Seann William Scott), who proves a surprisingly good fit with Morgan's madcap energy. His schtick here is a mimicking game that, with Morgan, turns into a Bugs Bunny routine-the movie's best laugh.
Others make brief appearances: Adam Brody and Kevin Pollack as unnecessary rival police; Fred Armisen as a Russian lawyer; Susie Essman as a gun-totting suburban mother whose five minutes cackle brilliantly with foul language. The violent gang leader Poh Boy is played by Guillermo Diaz in a part that might have been better comedic rather than menacing.
A question of action-to-comedy balance hovers over “Cop Out.” Written by Robb and Mark Cullen, it originally had Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg attached. They’ll instead release in August their buddy cop film “The Other Guys”-likely more of a full-blown comedy.
Interracial cop films, from “48 Hours” to “Lethal Weapon,” are a genre by themselves, but there’s virtually no racial material here, sapping it of friction.
Smith has made dialogue between two guys a staple since his indie breakthrough, “Clerks.” He’s since made some terrible films (“Dogma” taking the cake) and “Cop Out” finds him for the first time directing from a script not his own.
Like Hodges exclaims during a blitz of movie impressions, “Cop Out” is an homage. Harold Faltermeyer’s synthesizer-heavy score recalls his soundtrack from “Beverly Hills Cop,” the buddy cop classic that “Cop Out” falls well short of.
]]>New on DVD: “The Informant!“tag:thecornernews.com,2010:index.php/music_n_movies/5.96052010-03-02T20:36:41Z2010-03-02T21:40:42ZCarla Nelsoncmerrill@thecornernews.com
Matt Damon beautifully portrays Whitacre through his on-screen performance and his voice overs in the film.
Director Steven Soderbergh opens the story with Damon’s voice spouting out many random thoughts about Whitacre’s job. It seems if a thought pops into his head he wants the audience to know about it. This style of presenting information casts a tone of black humor over the film. This is not a comedy, but Soderbergh and Damon have found a way to make it humorous without going over the top.
The movie opens in Decatur, Ill., and weaves everywhere from Tokyo to Paris to Mexico City to Hong Kong. Whitacre has made it to upper management at Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), an agri-business company in the lysine business. Lysine is an additive used in the livestock business.
Whitacre’s story is one of lies, deceit and price-fixing. The movie was based on a nonfiction book by the same name from journalist Kurt Eichenwald.
Whitacre voluntarily turns whistleblower on ADM and provides the FBI with hours of tape involving a price-fixing scandal. The longer Whitacre stays undercover for the FBI, the more grand his lies become, and he eventually gets lost in his lies.
As the story unfolds it is obvious there is something not quite right in Whitacre’s train of thought and the way he handles himself. The final act of the movie describes his condition and is acted brilliantly. It gives the movie a great closing quality.
The peculiar theme through the movie is the web of lies that Whitacre builds during his years as an informant. Moviegoers will not know what to believe as the truth or discard as a lie by the time it is finished. Even the last scene of the movie leaves a question to be asked by the audience.
Soderbergh’s up-close and personal way of shooting the movie does a wonderful job of displaying the intriguing characteristics of Whitacre. Damon makes the audience like Whitacre immediately, and never loses that likability.
Scott Bakula invokes a sense of reality and grit as special agent Brian Shepard, the agent Whitacre originally confesses to about the scandal. Melanie Lynskey portrays Whitacre's wife, Ginger, compassionately and delicately. The audience can see this woman would do anything to protect her husband, and she is the one who pushes him to blow his whistle in the first place.
]]>‘Shutter Island’ is long, tiresome gloomtag:thecornernews.com,2010:index.php/music_n_movies/5.95432010-02-24T20:15:19Z2010-02-24T21:29:20ZCarla Nelsoncmerrill@thecornernews.com
The joy of a boy playing with the world’s greatest electric train set, as Orson Welles memorably described moviemaking, does not necessarily mean a good time for movie-goers, even with Scorsese’s regular screen idol, Leonardo DiCaprio, leading the superb cast.
“Shutter Island” is long and wearying — brilliantly constructed, obsessively detailed, yet dramatically a piece of pulp schlock that’s been overdressed and overstuffed to disguise a ponderous and absurd story.
In that regard, “Shutter Island” is right in line with Dennis Lehane’s novel, a 1950s tale of paranoia, delusion, grief and denial set at a New England asylum for the criminally insane, where two federal cops are searching for an escaped murderess.
Scorsese and screenwriter Laeta Kalogridis stick closely, almost literally, to Lehane’s story, whose jolts and surprises are clever but rather cheap and far-fetched.
It holds together well enough on the page as Lehane unfurls the rich inner tumult of U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels, a man agonized by the death of his wife and his World War II service among the Allied troops that liberated the Dachau death camp. You’re invested in this guy, so that when Lehane springs his grand twist, you may not buy it, but you at least can roll with it.
As gorgeously as Scorsese captures Teddy’s nightmare world, the director lets the man’s inherent gloom weigh so heavily that it overwhelms the story, making Lehane’s big reveal seem all the more shabby and unsatisfying.
For his first film since 2006 Academy Awards champ “The Departed,” Scorsese works a fourth time with DiCaprio, whose supreme gift for brooding makes him an obvious choice to play Teddy.
Paired with new partner Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo), Teddy is dispatched to Ashecliffe Hospital on bleak Shutter Island, where suspicion and ill weather seem the two sustaining elements.
Teddy and Chuck are trying to solve the vanishing-act escape of Rachel Solando, a delusional patient who drowned her three children. Rachel disappeared from her locked cell, and the hospital staff and guards have been unable to turn up any trace of her on the barren island.
The marshals are greeted with reserve bordering on hostility from the hospital staff, including the head shrinks (Ben Kingsley and Max von Sydow).
As a hurricane sweeps over the island, Teddy and Chuck tumble into a chasm of conspiracy theories about brainwashing, radical surgery, clandestine wards and secret patients.
Emily Mortimer and Patricia Clarkson play two different embodiments of the missing Rachel, whose true identity is at the heart of the story’s climactic surprise.
As Teddy’s dead wife in flashbacks, dreams and hallucinations, Michelle Williams delivers the film’s most moving moments. Those scenes also are Scorsese at his finest, radiant flashes of tragic grandeur in a film that otherwise is mostly a study in ghoulishness.
In imagery and design, it’s certainly a beautiful, even dazzling study as Scorsese conducts first-rate work from a team of past collaborators, including cinematographer Robert Richardson, production designer Dante Ferreri, costumer designer Sandy Powell and longtime editor Thelma Schoonmaker.
Robbie Robertson, whose group The Band was the subject of Scorsese’s concert film “The Last Waltz,” serves as music supervisor, creating a score that’s a suitably jarring pastiche based on tunes from a variety of 20th century composers.
From the Gothic feel of early German cinema to the more stark and realistic terrors of modern horror, Scorsese gloriously shows off the influences he’s been absorbing and devouring for well over half a century.
Scorsese has succeeded with grand pulp before with “Cape Fear” and “The Departed.” With “Shutter Island,” his reach is operatic, but the result is like an overblown episode of “The X-Files” or “The Twilight Zone.”
With so many talented people performing at the top of their game, “Shutter Island” should be more than this. If Scorsese and company cannot make it work as a movie, maybe it all comes back to the big stretch Lehane’s story expects viewers to accept.
If a film is going to pile on the doom and foreboding this thickly, the payoff better be worth the hard road viewers have to slog.
]]>Galactic “Ya-Ka-May”tag:thecornernews.com,2010:index.php/music_n_movies/5.94882010-02-22T16:39:29Z2010-02-22T17:50:30ZCarla Nelsoncmerrill@thecornernews.comGalactic “Ya-Ka-May” Standouts - “Bacchus,” “Speaks His Mind,” “Do It Again”
Much has been said - and recorded - about Post-Katrina New Orleans, but on the new album by Galactic, the funky NOLA natives breathe some new life into the city that care forgot. “Ya-Ka-May” (named after a popular ethnic soup from the New Orleans region made from whatever is on hand) features local artists, both known and unknown. And combined with the group’s penchant for hip-hop, the album sounds much like the soup – an eclectic mix of horns, repetitious riffs and soulful lyrics. While the album is a little scattered at moments, it’s a lot of fun.
]]>Sade “Soldier of Love”tag:thecornernews.com,2010:index.php/music_n_movies/5.94872010-02-22T16:36:23Z2010-02-22T17:39:24ZCarla Nelsoncmerrill@thecornernews.comSade “Soldier of Love” Standouts - “Be That Easy,” “Soldier of Love,” “Babyfather,” “Skin”
Some what of a surprise and treat is Sade’s return from a six-year hiatus from music. Their latest, (most people assume it’s just Sade Adu, the front woman, but it’s actually a trio) “Soldier of Love,” is almost a continuation of 2002’s “Lovers Live.” Adu’s silky, smooth alto vocals are just as intoxicating as ever. Couple that with excellent musicianship and lyrical content and you have a definite recipe for success.
]]>Powerful, imaginative European progressive rocktag:thecornernews.com,2010:index.php/music_n_movies/5.94862010-02-22T16:21:14Z2010-02-24T21:28:16ZCarla Nelsoncmerrill@thecornernews.com
The brainchild of multi-instrumentalist Robin Taylor, who hails from Copenhagen, Denmark, TU has released their 14th album, titled “Artificial Joy,” which is the latest of 27 total releases from Robin Taylor since 1991.
An absolutely astounding album, “Artificial Joy” is a diverse record that runs the gamut from delicate to grandiose. Taylor is a startlingly good composer, using counterpoint and syncopation masterfully, time signature changes tastefully, and inventive phrasing that sparks one’s imagination in a delightfully quirky way.
His music is powerful, evoking Stravinsky or Prokofiev, with the dramatic flair of Wagner, using extreme dynamic range and slowly-building crescendos to exquisitely manipulate the creation of tension and its subsequent release. A more contemporary comparison would be to King Crimson, Peter Gabriel’s Genesis, ‘70s Yes, or Gentle Giant, but make no mistake, Taylor’s Universe has their own distinct sound.
In addition to his well-honed compositional skills, Taylor is an accomplished guitarist who will take the listener on a musical roller-coaster ride with his solos. This is an exciting band I have been following for more than a decade, and have been constantly impressed and entertained by them over the years.
If you are a fan of progressive music, I most highly recommend you find Taylor’s Universe on CDBaby.com and order this album.
Hear Wildman Steve’s Internet radio station, Internet radio for music lovers 24/7, at www.wildmansteve.com.
]]>“Valentine’s Day” Soundtracktag:thecornernews.com,2010:index.php/music_n_movies/5.94442010-02-16T21:12:50Z2010-02-16T22:23:51ZCarla Nelsoncmerrill@thecornernews.com“Valentine’s Day” Soundtrack Standouts - “Today Was A Fairytale,” “Stay Here Forever,” “I'm Into Something Good”
The soundtrack to the new romantic comedy has all the ingredients of a lovey-dovey Valentine’s Day mix tape. And quite predictably, most tunes here are bubbly love songs about passionate young love, but that doesn’t stop them from working together rather well for a soundtrack. Re-workings of old songs and genre spanning artists like Willie Nelson make this collection of tunes a delightful soundtrack to the holiday of love. Also, new songs by Jewel and Taylor Swift should send this one to the top of the charts.
]]>Bridges is brilliant in ‘Crazy Heart’tag:thecornernews.com,2010:index.php/music_n_movies/5.94422010-02-16T20:56:51Z2010-02-16T22:03:52ZCarla Nelsoncmerrill@thecornernews.com
Bridges seems like the real thing in “Crazy Heart,” rasping out songs in the comfortable remnants of a whiskey-and-tobacco-seared voice that you might swear you’ve heard on a hundred jukeboxes in a hundred anonymous roadhouses.
It’s not a great singing voice, but it’s a soulful one, and Bridges matches it with one of the finest performances of his career, just playing the hell out of this guy whose self-abuse has carried him to a precipice where he either leaps into the pit or turns back and cleans up.
Academy Awards buzz is swirling around Bridges, nominated four times previously without a win. “Crazy Heart” feels like a potential Oscar winner for Bridges, who has a nice good-luck charm tagging along in co-star Robert Duvall, the 1983 best-actor winner for 1983’s “Tender Mercies,” another story of a downtrodden country singer.
Adapted by first-time director Scott Cooper from Thomas Cobb’s novel, the film casts Bridges as Bad Blake, an apt name for this wreck of a musician who has spoiled his many marriages, his career, his liver and lungs — pretty much everything a man can ruin.
He’s not black-hearted bad — he’s actually quite a charmer and very funny when he doesn’t let his ornery side overwhelm things. But he is bad — bad for himself and bad for others — and life has handed him more than his share of bad breaks.
Bad’s still chugging through the heartland in his behemoth of a 1970s SUV, playing in dive bars and bowling alleys with pickup bands from town to town. His audiences are small but adoring, even when he’s so drunk he has to dart offstage to throw up in a trash can in a back alley, leaving the backup musicians to perform the song he’s just dedicated to a wide-eyed fan.
The man’s had a taste of success, but nothing like the superstardom of his old protege Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell), who has scored mega-hits recording some of the tunes Bad has written.
Accustomed to one-night stands, Bad finds himself in a family frame of mind when he falls for Jean Craddock (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a single mom and small-town journalist who interviews him while he’s on the road.
Despite their age difference, Bridges and Gyllenhaal ease into romance naturally and believably, the relationship sparkling in the good times and truly agonizing in the bad.
Like Bridges’ Dude in “The Big Lebowski,” Bad abides, his resilience his second strongest suit next to his sheer devotion to making music. With a little help from his bar owner pal Wayne (Duvall), Bad takes some first steps at getting clean and sober.
Bridges is so good that you love this guy even when he is bad, even when he messes up. You’re not sure he’ll make it, but you befriend him from the start, and all you can do is root for him and hope things turn out well.
The story has its little cliches, yet it never succumbs to them, maintaining a sense of the unexpected and uncertain in the reclamation project Bad is making of his life.
Cooper, who has appeared in several films with Duvall, makes an assured filmmaking debut, doing what good actors-turned-directors do — staying out of the way of their performers and letting them run.
The real behind-the-scenes stars are T Bone Burnett, also a producer on “Crazy Heart,” and his songwriting collaborator Stephen Bruton, who died of cancer last spring as production was wrapping on the film.
Burnett, the mastermind behind the “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” soundtrack, and Bruton craft memorable songs that sound as though they were real country hits for somebody, particularly on the nice word play and catchy chorus of a tune titled “Fallin’ & Flyin’.”
The songs become anthems inhabited by Bridges, whose Bad Blake may wish his life had turned out differently but is never going to dribble tears in his shot glass so long as he still can find a stage somewhere to belt out a tune.
]]>Blues, gospel, rock rolled into onetag:thecornernews.com,2010:index.php/music_n_movies/5.93962010-02-12T20:07:22Z2010-02-12T21:14:23ZCarla Nelsoncmerrill@thecornernews.com
Combining the styles of that area’s church piano, country steel guitar, and Okefenokee swamp banjo, the unique sound of Swamp Cabbage was born. Parks took his ideas to New York, where he was almost immediately snatched up by Woodstock veteran and soul icon Richie Havens, with whom Parks has toured the world over the last four years.
When not performing lead guitar with Havens, Parks plays with Matt Lindsey on bass and Jagoda on drums, making up the band Swamp Cabbage, who performs mostly up and down the east coast and was seen at last year’s “Magnolia Festival” in Live Oak, Fla.
Swamp Cabbage is a powerful band, their music an amalgam of dirty blues, sweet gospel, and balls-out rock ‘n’ roll all rolled into one exciting show. Their music has been well documented on their two studio releases, 2006’s debut “Honk,” and 2009’s “Squeal,” but now they have opened Pandora’s Box with their new live album, “Live From New York on the In Tune.”
This is a band that is great in the studio, but playing live is their strong suit, and “Live From New York ...” underscores that premise in spades.
Opening the album with a chug-a-lug rocker called “Dixieland,” they waste no time getting to the nitty gritty, following that with “The Lid,” a dirty blues romp that kicks it into high gear. Throughout the next six songs, there is no downshifting, the band keeps building steam with song after song of swampy blues rock until reaching an explosive climax with their first album classic, “Tallahassee,” a rockin’ stomper that virtually kicks in the afterburners and rockets this album to “classic live album” status.
Hear Wildman Steve’s Internet radio station, Internet radio for music lovers 24/7, at www.wildmansteve.com.
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