The New Season in Music
This story was written byCBS Sunday Morning contributor Bill FlanaganM
CD sales keep going down as more and more young people buy their music digitally. My kids download their music; to them a CD is just the box the music came in. One interesting effect of this is that record companies are releasing classy upscale packages for the people who still buy music the old fashioned way — grown ups, music aficionados, and those who have trouble working computers. For those of us in all three groups, there's some really interesting stuff coming out.
Hal Willner is a legendary record producer known for off-beat multi-artist concept albums. He has two beauties coming out this fall. One set is called "Rogue's Gallery" of old sea shanties, sung by big names from Sting to Bono. It¹s another kind of folk music and it¹s very interesting but I have to warn you, a lot of these old sea shanties are filthy. Winston Churchill famously said the British navy was a place of "rum, sodomy and the lash." Apparently those were also the main subjects of their lyrical repertoire.
At the same time, the same producer has released "The Harry Smith Project Revisited," a collection of great American folk and blues songs performed by hip musicians like Lou Reed, Elvis Costello, and Beck. Harry Smith was a musicologist who collected old rural songs and really helped create the repertoire of the folk revival of the 50s and 60s. So "The Harry Smith Project" for the whole family, and "Rogue's Gallery" for adults only.
Speaking of shanties — no contemporary musician embodies the twin virtues of elegance and piracy better than Tom Waits. He is a gravel-voiced poet, the Edward Hopper of rock n' roll. Waits has a three CD set of new and previously obscure material called "Orphans" which makes a powerful case for his being in the first rank of American songwriters.
Each of the CDs is devoted to one of Waits' three strengths: Raw rock and blues that sounds like Captain Beefheart locked in the engine room of the Titanic; and European art songs that call to mind Howlin' Wolf singing Bertold Brecht.
Beautiful ballads that make you think of Louie Armstrong singing Stephen Sondheim; Waits has a three CD set? Well, Vince Gill can top that! The great country singer has a four CD set of all new material. I don¹t think anyone has ever done that before. Vince Gill is such a genial, well-liked personality that people may sometimes miss how great his talent really is. "These Days" makes the case for it. Like Waits, he is using multiple discs to demonstrate his mastery of traditional country forms.
Vince Gill is a nice guy and a gentleman he is also a brilliant singer and a masterful guitar player. This collection proves that once and for all.
Let's go from Tennessee to Africa and "Sierra Leone's Refugee All-Stars. There is a CD and a separate DVD documentary film about these musicians, displaced by the long civil war in Sierra Leone, who formed a band to play music in the refugee camps of Guinea. It sounds like an interesting story, good intentions — but how good could the music really be?
Well let me tell you, the music is fantastic. These musicians may have been thrown together by brutal circumstance, but they have made something uplifting and beautiful. They have built a bridge between the best contemporary African music and the inspirational reggae of Bob Marley.
Speaking of journeys, a singer who has never stopped moving and exploring is Robert Plant and the proof of that is in his new box set "Nine Lives." And yes, this is nine CDs — all of the solo albums Plant made from the end of his band Led Zeppelin in 1980 until last year.
Led Zeppelin is third only to the Beatles and Elvis as the biggest selling act of all time. Plant could have milked that sound forever, but he did not. For Robert Plant, it was only a starting place.
OK, that's a lot of discs — two CD sets, three CD sets, four CD sets and a nine CD set. What if you don¹t have that much time? What if you don't have a multi-disc player? Can I not recommend one old-fashioned single disc album?
Well I can, and it's unusual. The Replacements were the greatest rock band who never had a hit. Their singer, songwriter and guitarist Paul Westerberg is an underground hero who has for some time now stayed underground — he makes very personal albums in his basement in Minnesota and stays clear of the media, fans and major labels.
Well, leave it to Westerberg to re-enter the mainstream through a side door. He has just written and recorded the soundtrack to a cartoon, an animated film called "Open Season" and it is a witty, well-made collection of new Westerberg songs. It sounds like there might even be a little uncredited Replacements reunion going on, on some of it. Talk about something the whole family can enjoy. Paul Westerberg sneaks back in with songs for a cartoon. You parents will want to buy the CD, and your kids can download it.
By Bill Flanagan