Tom Waits - Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers, and Bastards - Tom Waits is an American treasure as incredible and irreplaceable as the Grand Canyon, and if you listen to the 56 songs that comprise the Orphans collection, you'll have a reasonable idea why. The Brawlers disc contains Mr. Waits' careening rock and roll and primal blues stomp, and for my money probably edges out the other two discs, as great as they are. Bawlers contains love songs and assorted weepers, which when done by Tom Waits are potent indeed. Many musicians have a rock side and a ballad side, and most collections could stop there, but Waits is no ordinary musician, so the Bastards disc is necessary, as it showcases his love of oddball spoken word, shambling beat poetry, and bizarre raconteurship. Considering his career spans four decades now, Orphans is not an accurate picture of his entire oeuvre, but it is a fascinating glimpse into a musical mind like no other.
Jerry Lee Lewis - Jerry Rocks - Everyone knows the amazing rock and roll sides that the Killer released on the Sun label in the fifties, but when a compilation of his work is released, it always splits the running time between the piano-burning rockers and the somewhat homogenous country material he released around the same time (Sorry, die-hard Lewis fans, but it's true, if you skip through his country weepers, you hear the exact same four note walkup to the opening chord over and over again, and the rest of those songs usually fare no better where originality is concerned.) But this Bear Family Records collection dispenses with the downtempo business and gives you all the rockers, including some material that rarely shows up on comps. There are some great covers, all the originals you know and love, and even some upbeat country numbers. I'd been looking for a compilation like this for some time, and it definitely delivers.
Voodoo Blues - The Devil Within - A while back I thought, "It seems like there should be a collection of older blues songs about the influence of voodoo and folk magic on black culture in the south." Thirty seconds later, a Google search confirmed my genius. There are a few of them, actually, but this two-disc collection seems to be the most enjoyable. It has a nice balance of material, from the older, creepier material (Robert Johnson, Sam Hopkins, Skip James), to the newer, more tongue-in-cheek sorts of songs, (Howlin' Wolf, Screamin' Jay Hawkins). The range of approaches to the subject matter is beneficial, since a narrow focus on both style and theme could easily render the proceedings overly homogenous, a trap that some of the other collections in this vein fall into.
Them - Them - People frequently overlook Them when remembering great mid-60's bands, but it's fascinating to hear Van Morrison in his rock and roll wild man days. On their self-titled debut, the band occupy the space (both temporally and sonically) between Howlin' Wolf-style Chicago blues and The Stooges' down and dirty ruckus, which frequently ends up sounding similar to the Rolling Stones, an equation that makes musical sense, really. This album is really a perfect status report of mid-decade rock and roll, from the organ heavy "I'm Gonna Dress in Black" that gives The Animals' "House of the Rising Sun" a run for its money, to the incomparable ode to sex "Gloria," which has been covered by everyone from The Doors to Patti Smith. There's no reason this album shouldn't be talked about with the same reverence as Aftermath, Animalisms, or The Kink Kontroversy.
Toad the Wet Sprocket - Dulcinea - It's easy to lose sight of Toad the Wet Sprocket, a statement that was true even in the mid-90's. 1994 was a banner year for musical sadness, but Toad the Wet Sprocket tended to be drowned out by their more histrionic peers in alternative rock. The band's gimmick was that they had no gimmick (other than the band name, which they pulled from an old Monty Python sketch, though that is neither here nor there where their music is concerned). They played well, but had no showiness about them. They weren't the loudest or fastest, or even most miserable. In fact, compared to the wailings of other bands at the time, the glum nature of these songs seems composed and almost elegant. Toad's strong point is that they know their way around a melody, and they crafted solid songs to support them, as is evident here on Dulcinea. It didn't necessarily make them the most newsworthy band, but it did result in several albums worth of great music. Sometimes I need nothing more than their jangly guitars and Glen Phillips' fragile voice, bolstered by the harmonies that frequently crop up behind it in their songs.
Carousell - Black Swallow and Other Songs - Carousell is one of the many guises (A Broken Consort, Riftmusic, *AR, etc.) of Richard Skelton, a UK-based composer of beautiful droning songs made primarily with bowed strings of various sorts. With each new appellation, Skelton displays a different focus on his signature sound, and with that in mind, it appears that Carousell is his most conventional version yet, since there's identifiable notes and very nearly a discernible rhythm to some of the proceedings, unlike earlier recordings. The instrumentation is more diverse as well, including piano, strings both bowed and plucked, what sounds like field recordings, and the occasional whispery, wordless voice, courtesy of wife Autumn Richardson. This record is gorgeous, and while it does cleave closely to his established atmosphere of arboreal melancholy, the compositions here are more lush than his usually spare (though equally compelling) style. The result is a collection of soundscapes that manage to be both earthy and ethereal at once, like being able to touch a memory. This is not a record for everyone (a fact Skelton must understand, since the initial run of discs was limited to 100), and so much the better, because it can live like a secret with those who understand its value.
I'll end this one with a film recommendation (it's musically based, so I think it falls under our focus here). The new Mudhoney documentary I'm Now is an excellent look at a band that's too often forgotten when people talk about early 90's grunge. They outlasted pretty much everyone, even through drug addiction and changing styles, and it's great to be able to hear all of the original members tell the story as they lived it.
