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Little Feat

Fueled by drop-dead Southern funk n’ jump performed with the tightest playing around, Little Feat survived what could have been their final curtain: the death of co-founder Lowell George in 1979. But as the past 30 years have shown, as incredibly gifted as Lowell was, Little Feat was always more than just his backing band.

As sidemen, the individual members of Little Feat are artists’ artists, playing with top tier names: Willie Nelson, Rod Stewart, Jackson Browne, J.J. Cale, Buddy Guy, Emmylou Harris, B.B. King, Linda Ronstadt, James Taylor, Bob Dylan, Bonnie Raitt, Carly Simon, Nicolette Larson, and a hundred more. (On the underground side… there’s a bootleg floating around lately of Dylan, in his Slow Train Coming Days, featuring a Fred Tackett guitar solo that should not be missed.)

Together, they make a magic that can only be called Little Feat. Paul Barrére and Fred Tackett’s guitar work mix tube tone, twang and down home funk like a runaway freight train and Billy Payne’s keyboard playing puts the “D” in Dixie.

They have spent the better part of their lives making magic in the studio and on the road. It’s a lifestyle that’s “all right for awhile” as they say in Home Ground, but they’ll overcome under inflated tires, red-hot blacktop and the temptations of alluring admirers, just to be home once again and hang out in the kitchen.

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Photo © by Chris Strother

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Amy Correia

You ever hear a song that within the first few measures transports you into a dream? That’s what Amy Correia does with Lakeville. It’s a sonic picture of Amy’s childhood home in New England, with images of a shimmering lake, lilac flowers and sunlight glowing through leaves.

Recorded in the candle-lit ballroom of a Hollywood Hills mansion, the song subtly leaves you longing for a place like Lakeville, where “nothing really ever happens” and you can be at peace for a flickering moment or two.

Amy told us this about Lakeville: “Producer Mark Howard recorded Josh Grange (guitar), Dave Ralicke (trombone) and myself (baritone uke) performing the song live in the ballroom of the Paramour Mansion in Los Angeles. It’s a quiet, contemplative song, which, if it is about love, is a kind of mystical love between oneself and God. Lakeville refers to real place, the small town I grew up in Massachusetts, but it speaks to the deeper longing to be at peace with myself. The images of a shimmering lake, sunlight glowing through leaves, lilac breezes are memories from my childhood. The image of being alone in the light blue canoe is at the heart of the song. (It’s also the picture on the cover of my album.) Floating in solitude where “nothing really ever happens” is being at peace in one’s spiritual “home.” I named the album “Lakeville” as homage to this idea and experience.”

Amy is currently working on her third album with cellist Gerri Sutyak. The album will be released in 2007.

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R.L. Burnside

Born in Layfayette County, near Oxford, Mississippi in 1926, he began sharecropping as a young man. It wasn’t until R.L. was nearly 30 years old that he began singing blues and playing guitar, inspired John Lee Hooker, as well as local bluesmen such as Mississippi Fred McDowell and Ranie Burnette. Like tens of thousands others, Burnside migrated to Chicago in hopes of finding a better life than sharecropping offered. But Chicago was a killing field for R.L.. In a one month period, R.L.'s father, brother and uncle were murdered. So sometime around 1959 he went back to Mississippi to again work the farms and raise a family. He also started to play music at night and on weekends.

Another thirty years passed before R.L. got any notice outside the North Mississippi hill country.

This all began to change for R.L. in the early 1990s when a documentary film based on Robert Palmer's book Deep Blues featured R.L. Not long after, Palmer produced R.L.'s Too Bad Jim for the wonderful Fat Possum label. The album caught the attention of Jon Spencer, and R.L. toured extensively with the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. A collaboration between the two, A Ass Pocket of Whiskey, turned R.L into an unforeseen star at the ripe young age of 65.

As heard on Rollin’ & Tumblin’ R.L. melded his deeply rooted Mississippi blues with the rawness of indie rock and added strains of techno and hip-hop, to usher in 21st century blues. And he did it all from a shotgun shack in Mississippi. In fact, aside from his bloody days in Chicago, the only other time he was away from the hill country was a six month stint in jail for murdering a man he said was trying to turn him out of his home. His prison sentence would have been much longer if not for the negotiations of the white landowner he sharecropped for, who argued that he needed R.L. back on a tractor in order to keep the money flowing.

R.L. never expressed remorse for killing the man, truth is, he took solace in the twists of fate, as he told New Yorker magazine in 2002, "It was between him and the Lord, him dyin'… I just shot him in the head."

R.L. Burnside died at age 79, from a stroke and heart failure.

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Photo © by Armstrong Beck

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Angela McCluskey

Angela McCluskey confesses to preferring the more depressing, melancholy songs. “Give me a good ol’ dose of misery any day,” she says, “I think it’s a Scottish thing.” She sings with a weary, world worn wisdom that makes you know she’s telling you the truth with every breath. Sleep On It, featured on Shedo Shedon’t, begins with a mournful cello joined by a muffled snare drum, beating like Angela’s broken heart. As the song continues, her dismay at her love affair gone awry builds and builds until she delivers the fatal blow, revealing to her deceitful lover that there are cameras in the ceiling fan.

This is what Nathan Larson, producer, has to say about Angela: “Angela McCluskey swooped into my life in 1997. That’s what she does; she swoops into your world, as if from another epoch, all big hats and velvet and a dense Scottish slur. I was transformed, touched; she possessed an inexplicable magnetism, an infinite energy, scattering practical advice, poetry, Dorothy Parker-isms, and foul-mouthed jokes like fairy-dust. The force of her personality alone is enough to make her legendary, but here’s the thing: when she sings, only then will she righteously kick your ass.

I could cite gushers like this: “The striking vocals of Angela McCluskey will make you remember the first time you heard Miles blow his horn or Billie sing the blues.” (Hits Magazine) That’s not inaccurate. People bandy phrases like this around, but let it be known that Angela McCluskey is no less than the real deal.

Angela hails from Glasgow, Scotland; a lovely, scary town. Scarier still, she wasn’t exactly encouraged to become a vocalist. “I used to sing so I could stay up late,” says Angela. “I’d do ‘Summertime’ or something and then (my family would) throw me back in bed. Singing’s just not a big deal there, so nobody ever turns ‘round and goes, ‘You know what? You should sing when you grow up.’”

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Photo © by Michael Wilson

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Claire Holley

While traveling from one gig to another, Claire Holley once saw a road sign that said, “6 miles to McKenney.” She liked the sound of it and started singing it over and over as she drove down the highway. Soon after, with the phrase still in her head, she stopped for gas and encountered an oddly mannered woman at the station. Claire put the pieces together and the result was a straight ahead barroom honky-tonk tale of a quiet nobody who tries to stay invisible around a uninhibited drifter, all the while fantasizing about joining her, and clanking down the highway in a rusty old car to see what adventures lay ahead, just 6 Miles to McKenney.

The song was recorded using old-school rules: a spacious room, classic equipment, tubes, tape and vintage instruments giving a snug feel to a wide open rhythm section.

Claire’s voice is a mix of wistfulness, melancholy and plain fun, which PASTE Magazine described as, "simultaneously sweet and gruff… but there's something of the honky-tonker lurking underneath. It's a quality that gives her records a rough-and-tumble sexiness..." That’s the side of Claire you’ll hear on 6 Miles to McKenney, featured on Chicken Fried Rust.

Claire told us this about the song: "So yes, this song is based on a true story. The real woman I encountered was what Janis Joplin might look like if she were a truck driver. As I remember she drove a worn down mini-van (you know, the very first ones on the market), American made. But ‘wagon’ sounded better to me than ‘mini-van.’ The fourth verse is pretty much how it happened. I really did encounter her in the bathroom, and it was equally frightening and hilarious as the situation unfoldedthough I must admit it was lemon Snapple tea on the counter and not camel cigarettes. (I know of at least one little person who thinks those are real camels standing on the counter by the bathroom sink.)

I remember co-producer Steve Graham giving me a pep talk before my vocal take, and I had just the right amount of encouragement and challenge: “Bring out the sass and sexiness in this. Don’t hold back. You can do this.” There was nothing inappropriate about him saying that. He was simply talking about being authentic and convincing in light of the story. I don’t know if I achieved what he wanted, but I do remember feeling a little more amped up in the vocal booth and happy when I listened back (and this is certainly not always the case).

In the photo, you are seeing the studio and the players as I saw them through my little window in my vocal/guitar booth. On the left with his hand in his hair is Justin Rosolino who plays the opening guitar riff. In the middle is Eddie Walker, a North Carolina-based drummer who worked in Steve’s studio a lot. On the right is Rob Seals who played slide guitar. I love the way he and Justin worked together; really listening never too much, never too little. Steve is the one out of focus, which is appropriate because he was always moving around getting the levels right and adjusting mics. He not only produced but played bass in the control room as the songs were going to tape. The man in the headphones on the couch reading a magazine is my husband, who was around for much of the recording."

Photo © by Michael Wilson

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Christopher Williams

You see a slender man on the stage, loudly tapping a heartbeat groove on a djembe drum. With eyes closed, he sings, “Trouble is what trouble does/When the stakes are high and that simple kiss comes to shove/I can see why you would sell me out when you could/Your soul was getting lost and the money was getting good/But I did not draw that line for you to cross over.” And then the singing stops while the djembe beats on, allowing you to meditate on your own anecdotes of betrayal, stored in a sad part of your memory.

That is what Christopher Williams does. He causes you to listen, but lets your mind hear.

Did Not Draw takes on a different power on Graceful Overload. With drop-dead drums and bass, and exceptional guitar work from Christopher and Jars of Clay’s Steve Mason, the song is made more searing by the backing vocals from Ashley Cleveland.

Christopher told us this about the song: "Did Not Draw was written in response to some things that were happening in my life. Some friends of mine co-wrote a song called 'Trouble Is' and I liked the idea of that phrase. The second was a relationship that I was in where there were some jointly established boundaries that began to be pushed, and I wasn't willing to go along with that. Often I will write about real-life things going on in my life and this is definitely a case of that. And the 3rd piece of inspiration was straight from the biblical story of Judas and Jesus - as I was thinking of the ultimate betrayals or crossing of boundaries.

It is kind of an odd combination of stories/events, but that is the challenge of writing sometimes - taking several ideas and thoughts and making them flow into one cohesive song.

The song was recorded in June 2004 in Nashville at a studio called Sputnik Studios and produced by my good friend Mitch Dane. He brought in all of the musicians and that included local session guys Andy Hubbard on drums and Chris Weingel on bass and features the excellent guitar playing of Steve Mason from Jars of Clay and the vocal powerhouse of Ashley Cleveland. I was lucky to go on tour with Jars and Ashley in the Spring of 2005 and be able to play that song every night with the two of them sitting in. One of my career highlights thus far!"

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Photo © by Latitia Green
Digital manipulation by Jason Green

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Paul Thorn

And so deep in Mississippi, a Church of God preacher’s three-year-old boy was singing spirituals at his daddy’s revival meeting. Everybody came around and put money in his tambourine. After the service, there was a little girl, also about three years old, who he had a crush on. So he stuffed the money into his pockets, and after the service he and the little girl sat around the back of the church and he bought her a Coke with the money he’d earned. That was his first paying gig, and, his first date.

But making money at music wouldn’t always be as simple as that for Paul Thorn. He paid his dues while following his passions. Paul was a pretty decent boxer, having learned the art of fisticuffs from his uncle. And loved the life of the pugilist. So when he was 14, he started punching his way to the pros. He hung up his gloves in 1988 after going the distance with Roberto Duran. It was a big fight. It was on national television. But Duran’s iron hands convinced Paul that he’d had enough. And besides, his music was beckoning him from inside. So he did stints as a factory worker, skydiver, all kinds of things — and all the while he played his music whenever and wherever he could.

One night, while performing at a Tupelo pizza joint, a man in the crowd came up to him and introduced himself. He was Miles Copeland, the legendary manager. He had seen something very special in Paul and sent him packing to L.A., signed record contract in hand. “When I got my first record deal, I was literally plucked from a chair factory and flown to Los Angeles,” Paul tells it. “Everyone told me how great I was and how famous I would soon be. You learn pretty quick that everything everyone says isn’t always the whole truth. There can be darkness behind those big, bright lights.”

Some very tasteful musicians have asked Paul to tour with them. People like, Sting, Mark Knopfler, Jeff Beck, John Hiatt, Richard Thompson, Robert Cray, Marianne Faithfull and John Prine. He’s toured the United States, Canada and the UK, and even played The Royal Albert Hall.

Thorn writes and performs songs taken from his life — good times, bad times, and everything in between. He writes about love, loss, and yearning, with a slightly surreal Southern sense of the unexpected that draws you in and never lets go. He’s a great player and surrounds himself with some of the sharpest backing players in the South. His music mixes boogie with gospel, guitars with horns, and a driving backbeat that was clearly born in the Delta.

Paul’s gospel-tinged rocking tale of a roadside preacher who sells fireworks (bottle rockets are 2-for-1) but dispenses scripture for free is featured on Moonstruck Records’ Chicken Fried Rust and Can Be Heard. The song is taken right out of his memories of growing up in the Deep South. “The title came straight from my childhood. Growing up a Pentecostal preacher’s son, I went to a lot of tent revivals. In Mississippi, they use the same kind of tent to sell fireworks. It’s all about big business religion vs. the real thing.”

Kris Kristofferson says it best when describing Paul’s songs; “they are absolutely Southern, absolutely original, full of heart and humor and surprises and street-wise details of trailer parks and turnip greens and love and lust that have the unmistakable ring of truth. And he sings them with the soul and pure joy of a true artist.”

Amen!

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Photo © by Clay Patrick McBride

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Cassandra Wilson

In 1982 this beautiful woman left Mississippi and arrived in New York.

She was a singer since she was a little girl but had only been singing jazz for a few years. But she was meant to be a jazz singer. She connected with jazz in a way that not many others could. And so she started singing at places like the Red Rooster and Small’s Paradise up in Harlem.

Cassandra Wilson began to fill 138th Street with a sound that seeps with sophistication and seduction, clearly well versed in the nuances of the great ladies of jazz — Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald and Betty Carter. Her voice, an earthy contralto of New York swing and hip, is made more magical with the underlying presence of her native land.

At that time in New York, a new way of thinking among jazz musicians was taking shape and Cassandra was drawn to it. These players were studying African and other music, looking at it as part of ancient cultures, creating harmonies through rhythm and trying new ways of mixing improvisation and song structure. Cassandra learned to avoid the standard approach to a song. She sought out cues from the rhythm. She walked away from the obvious and learned to convey emotion and experience in an entirely new way.

Cassandra didn’t become an avant-garde experimentalist as a result of this. Instead, she applied her expanded approach to standards, ballads, blues and pop. Robert Johnson’s “Hellhound On My Trail” becomes a haunting tale through Cassandra’s voice and her netherworld sound of acoustic guitar and trumpet mouthpiece. She is entirely unique. TIME Magazine said, “There is no more purely and uncontrived female force in our national music today.”

Nearly 20 years after leaving Mississippi, Cassandra took on the daunting task of adding lyrics to some of Miles Davis’ songs. Her textural treatment of “Run the Voodoo Down” is featured on the Moonstruck Records releases, Can Be Heard and Shedo Shedon’t. The song fades in, like it has always been playing. Percussion and percussive wah-wah guitar unfurl as Cassandra begins her tale of self-pride, with the words, “I got High John in my pocket; got mud on my shoes; walked all the way from Mississippi; just to spread the news.”

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Alejandro Escovedo

There’s a lot of nothing on the road between Austin and L.A. Alejandro Escovedo made that trip so many times that he could do it in his sleep. Austin was home where his devoted fans kept him (barely) in the black with the bank. L.A. was where bigger things could happen if he kept plugging away. So Alejandro was always on that road, staring at the stark landscape, squinting to detect what may be just beyond the horizon.

Plenty had happened by the time Alejandro started making that trip. He had already been part of three critically acclaimed, but commercially bust bands.

It started with San Francisco’s punk favorites, The Nuns. From there he moved back home to Texas to play lead guitar with Rank and File, making what became known as Cowpunk music. It was a great time for him, playing the seedy clubs, befriending John Cale of the Velvet Underground; living the life of a young man with a loud guitar and a well-traveled van. But Rank and File wasn’t his band; the others out shadowed him. And so he left Rank and File, called his brother Javier (one of his 11 siblings) and hooked up with John Dee Graham to form The True Believers. While the group was headlining with Los Lobos, Alejandro began to realize that his Mexican roots were trying to come out through his music. And he needed to bring that part of himself to his music in an individual way.

The True Believers broke up and Alejandro went solo and once again found himself on that road between Austin and L.A., looking out across the desert. He began to hear what that land, which he calls mi terra, sounded like. To him, it was a sound that was deep and intimate, with the texture of Gilas and shadowed rocks. Alejandro brought that sound to his music with guitars, cellos, violins and drums. It wouldn’t always be soft music, mind you — after all, this man was a punk pioneer.

His new music was what Rolling Stone called, “his own genre.” It was confessional without ever losing the ability to rock. He told stories taken from the pages of his life in a very honest and personal way that resonated with anyone who heard them. He wrote about marriages ending, lovers’ suicides, his father’s influence and his own take on the experience of being kind of Mexican while being kind of American.

His solo career took off in Austin. He was something of a cultural icon there, but it certainly didn’t make him rich. He stretched even further, into playwriting and string ensembles. He was ascending as an artist. His song “Castanets”, recorded during that period, is featured on Moonstruck Records’ Graceful Overload.

Traveling far and wide to perform and the life-on-the-road lifestyle took its toll on Alejandro. He was diagnosed with Hepatitis C and warned that unless he changed his ways (meaning, put the bottle down), he was living on borrowed time. And in Tempe one night after a performance, the loan came due. He collapsed and wasn’t expected to live.

But he did live. And now, four years after his collapse, Alejandro Escovedo is clean and fresh and very much alive artistically, emotionally and physically. He is stronger for having made that journey to the ledge of the horizon.

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