So Long, 2013, And My Music Faves...

Gosh, I wish I had more time to keep this up. I simply wish I had more time. 2013 was a good year for my family and I. Even a second-story toilet overflow that pretty much demolished four rooms of the house has brought a nice face-lift to our ol' domicile. My children continue to get bigger and, thank God, remain healthy. They're doing well in school. I have two sections of music history, for which I can't really complain. I went to twenty concerts this year, my most ever. Took my dad to three of them. Met many musicians. Turned forty. Watched my dad continue to do great things as mayor of my city. Spent great times (but never enough) with great friends. Took time away from politics. While I forgot to do this last year, here's my Top __ List of 2013 music releases. I know that there are many more important things than album releases but everyone else is producing lists so I might as well. For the most part, here are my favorite albums of 2013 in no particular order: Preservation Hall Jazz Band - "That's It". Not a good year for jazz and yet this reliable New Orleans mainstay delivered yet again. The band's first album of all-original material, this record's only flaw is that it's too short. Can't say that about too many records. This album will make you stomp, swing, Congo-line and smile. These guys never disappoint but this time they simply soar. Dawes - "Stories Don't End". I enjoyed discovering this L.A. band last year and its first two albums. Labeled as part of the renewal of the "mellow mafia" sound a la Jackson Browne (they even played with him), Dawes is a band whose songs don't hit you in the face, they stick with you. Not ear-wormy but you know lyrics and chord progressions are good when you find yourself thinking about them at random times of your day. Nothing's wrong with introspective lyrics that question why things in one's life are the way they are, either. Aoife O'Donovan - "Fossils". I resisted picking up this album due to a bit of what I thought was hype. Five months later, I realized that it was my loss. A beautiful album (from a beautiful woman) of "Americana" music - she wrote for Alison Krauss and her banjo player was in Bruce's Seeger Sessions Band - her lilting voice and aching, poignant lyrics make for an amazing record. Had a chance to see her the same week I bought the record and her solo acoustic performance made the songs even that more profound. Charles Bradley - "Victim of Love". The screamin' eagle of soul has been one of my greatest discoveries of the last couple of years. His back story is wonderful (too long to go into it here) but his music is invigorating. A revival of the best stuff to ever come out of Memphis in the '60s, Bradley's new album drives that SOUL into you and doesn't let go. Turning the record over and over and over is the only way to play Charles Bradley's music and seeing him perform these songs live in September is something I won't forget for a very long time. Dylan - "Another Self Portrait". How can a series of outtakes from three or four of Dylan's first batch of albums not considered life-altering? This latest Bootleg Series release will show you. I've loved Bob's "singer-songwriter" phase from 1969 through the early '70s and this record makes "Self Portrait" and "New Morning" even better. If that's possible. Willie Nile - "American Ride". Why doesn't the world know about this guy?!?!? In his mid'60s and rocking like a teenager. I fell hard for "Streets of New York" in 2006 and Nile continues to blast with East Coast rock, romantic tales of the Big Apple and a sense of staying true to his musical vision while knowing that a greater audience is missing his music. Known for writing the best E Street Band music Bruce never did, Willie's Willie and not derivative of the Boss or anyone else. I love how great rock and roll still makes me love cities, people and relationships in romantic ways that give me hope about life. Nicki Bluhm & the Gramblers - eponymous. 2013 seemed to be the year of all things Bluhm. I discovered Nicki in the summer of 2012 and loved her music immediately upon seeing her live the first time. Come to find she's from the same home town as my wife! Her re-released "Driftwood" was just about my favorite album last year and the Gramblers pick up where they left off - giving us music that sounds like the perfect Linda Ronstadt or Bonnie Raitt album - a little soul, a little country, a lot of pop, fantastic harmonies and song sensibilities straight from the best era of L.A. - the early 1970s. This new one doesn't quite flow like "Driftwood" with a singular sound but each song is so catchy, so poppy and so good that it doesn't matter. Catching the band live, it's also great to see them improve with every performance. Including last year's Christmas concert (at the small Town Theater in Lafayette that holds a hundred people!), a couple of club shows, the album release party, the Hardly Strictly set (with Boz Skaggs) and another holiday gig last week, I caught Nicki and the guys six times this year! I'm just glad my wife is okay with my harmless crush :) That leads to The Mother Hips - "Behind Beyond". Man, Mother Hips was the band that got away until just this last winter. They've been around since my college days and I remember them rolling through Isla Vista many times. I never caught them then, nor in the 90s nor the last ten years. They'd always been on my radar but...well, that darn fish...After seeing Tim perform in his wife's band (see above) I pulled them up on youtube and realized that it has been my very big loss to have missed them all these years. A solid rock and roll band with all of the right influences but such a unique and vibrant, classic sound. Man, I'm an idiot. 2013 was a serendipitous time to stumble across them, though, as the band was road-testing an album due for a summer release. I was able to see the band twice, all the while scooping up as much of their back catalogue as possible. And then, their new one comes out and it may just be my favorite of all of their records. Four- and five-minute weavings of twin guitar dueling, Grateful Dead-meets-Crazy Horse movement, each song with its own stamina and statement. This record works best when listening on "repeat" mode. Why these guys aren't bigger is beyond me. I must catch a couple of shows soon and collect more of their mid'90s releases. Bobby Whitlock - "Where There's a Will There's a Way". My penultimate favorite of the year. This is the first time Bobby Whitlock's first two albums (epon. and "Raw Velvet")from 1972 have been released on cd. It's a crime against humanity that these records don't receive daily play on classic rock radio and not brought up as influential on modern artists that love music from the best era of rock and roll. It's truly a damn shame that Bobby Whitlock ranks up there as one of rock's greatest "also rans"; how is it that the guy who played with Delaney and Bonnie, George Harrison and then pushed Eric Clapton to make "Layla" all in two years' time isn't a star on his own? This re-release has the core Derek & the Dominos along with other studio legends all over these songs; they're Stonesy, bluesy, soulful and full of church. They boogie without strutting and they get quiet and beautiful without being lachrymose. Bobby Whitlock's songwriting was right there on the pulse of everything that was awesome in the early '70s - Stephen Stills was hitting on it, Clapton was, so was Leon Russell and Joe Cocker and the best of the "Woodstock Generation". A good friend and I have always agreed that Bobby wasn't the rhythm keyboardist and backing vocalist on "Layla", he was the second lead singer and main instrumentalist along with Clapton. These records give Whitlock his due and let him shine and man, shine he does. I would love to see (as it seems to be happening) his career get a kick-start and he tour. I had the good fortune to chit-chat with him a couple of times on Facebook, sharing stories and the love of music. He gave me a great story for my music history class of the origins of "Thorn Tree In the Garden", the closer on the Layla record which they adored. I'm listening to the disc as I type this and man, it makes me want to hop in my car, fly up to Mendocino, sit on the cliffs and stare out at the ocean with this streaming out of KOZT's speakers. May this re-release give you the credit you deserve, sir. I'm leaving the best for last. This is my absolute favorite of 2013 and these guys have been my absolute favorites since crossing paths with them since 2009. Truth & Salvage Co.'s "Pick Me Up" is three years in the making. While their sophomore release should have seen the light of day two years earlier, the band's journey from Southern California to Nashville has taken them tens of thousands of miles, critical acclaim and very little attention for just how great they really are. "Pick Me Up" has a smattering of songs by each of the songwriters and by now, Walker, Scott, Bill and Tim have created their own identities as musicians. The guys have given us more songs from the road, reflections of home, a sense of place and the importance of the people that surround them. I once described this band as an old friend one has just met and "Pick Me Up" carries that friendship beyond their near-perfect first release. With twin guitars and keyboards, in-the-pocket bass and harmonies to make any classic L.A. band nervous and inferior, T&S is the modern Band - their musical influences there to draw from, their talent to play just about anything, new songs that stand right up there with the classic covers they perform, these guys continue to be The Real Deal. Their two shows from last August were perfect and one of them served as my big birthday party. Thankfully, a whole group of friends was willing to be dragged along to the Café du Nord and the band delivered its strongest and longest gig I've seen them play, doing Dead, Dylan, Band and Beatles covers and killing them all. The final song from PMU (my favorite) was dedicated to me as a birthday wish and the band ended their show by performing "Pure Mountain Angel" from their first record not only without amplification but with acoustic guitars and standing in the middle of the audience, arms linked around bandmates and friends alike. While Walker started the first verse's line, the band gave the song to the crowd and in four-part harmony, we helped the guys take the song home. One giant embrace, a gift of song and the memory of great friends celebrating, this show is the album is the music is the band: Truth & Salvage. Thanks, guys. I stuck to a Top 10. There are so many honorable mentions that I'm chucking them up collectively as the "eleventh" - I couldn't choose from them but they've been fantastic, getting lots of play and love: Glen Hansard - "Drive All Night" ep. Doing Bruce's classic from "The River" with Jake C. on sax. The Stone Foxes - hard rock from the Bay Area. Song Preservation Society - one can derisively label them and Crosby, Stills, Simon and Garfunkel and yet this short first album is some pretty wonderful modern folk. The Blank Tapes - "Vacation". Lo-fi indie surfer rock at its best. Jonathan Wilson - "Fanfare". His albums are long and sometimes I lose attention but in concert, this is the most psychedelic, far-out space rock and the best head trip since Pink Floyd's "Atom Heart Mother". Jason Isbell - "Southeastern". Thankfully I've been listening to him for years or else I'd get sick of the attention this record's been getting as his "sober" record. Isbell's career since leaving the Drive-by Truckers has shown that he's been releasing the band's best music for the last half-decade. Billy Joe Armstrong and Norah Jones - Foreverly. I adore her and hate everything about his band and yet this cover album of the Everly Brothers from 1958 is sublime. Need to absorb it greater. Tedeschi Trucks Band - "Made Up Mind". The band's second release which demonstrates just how sterile a band can be in the studio and yet live can be like seeing God. An eleven piece modern day Delaney and Bonnie and Mad Dogs with an amazing singer and the world's greatest living guitar player. Never to be missed again. Neil Young - "Live at the Cellar Door, 1970". Another "bootleg" release. It's a bit disarming just how good Neil was right as CSN&Y was imploding; this is the third release within one year of his career and again, it's solo. Not sure whether Neil realizes that his career was peaking as it was getting started. Or that his records were nowhere near as consistent as his live performance or that he needn't have used electric instruments to make some of the greatest music of the decade. Neil's always been so wildly inconsistent that that whole Neil-being-Neil thing actually gets old very quickly when trying to figure out which album to buy or era to listen to. "Cellar Door" is a great spin. I have had a fantastic year collecting music I don't know where to start. I've scooped up much of the back catalogue of the Hips, Glen Hansard, Uncle Tupelo, the Replacements, Carole King, Dylan's "lost years" and much else. My favorite has been Dave Mason's 1970 "Alone Together" which just about completes the circle of all of those musicians from both sides of the Atlantic who recorded D&B's "On Tour", "All Things Must Pass", "Layla", "Mad Dogs & Englishmen" and all of the side project records those musicians banged out - another lost classic and seven perfect songs. I came to really discover the Lovin' Spoonful and fall in love with that band's output. Fortunately, I was also able to see John Sebastian in concert, meet him and have him sign my Woodstock poster. What a great guy and while his career never saw the fame his band did, he's a solid musician, quite a great songwriter and a journeyman from the Woodstock Generation. 2013 wasn't without loss and Woodstock may have lost its greatest flag-bearer. On April 22nd, Earth Day of all days, Richie Havens passed away. Over the years, my love for his music has only deepened and as I've collected his best records (both from his heyday as well as the fantastic records of the last ten years), his music holds great musical and spiritual importance to me. The man's inner beauty and life message still resonates and as I think of him on nearly a daily basis, I mourn his passing greatly. Thankfully, his output will remain. That's it. I know my writing is rusty and I'm trying to do this instead of clean my house before going out. Happy 2013 and may 2014 bring peace and health to everyone.