Category: Music

New Favorite

Alison Krauss and Union Station

(Rounder)

There are two kinds of Alison Krauss fans: those who are also fans
of bluegrass in a more general sense and those who are just fans of great
singers. For those of us who fall into the latter camp, Krauss’ greatest
record will probably always be the 1995 compilation Now That I’ve Found
You: A Collection. That ragtag collection — pulling cuts from solo and
Union Station albums along with guest vocals on other artists’ records and
unreleased material — was a surprise smash. By mixing covers from such
unlikely sources as the Beatles, the Foundations, and Bad Company with more
standard gospel and country fare, Now That I’ve Found You established
Krauss as not her generation’s greatest bluegrass star (which she may well be)
but as one of her generation’s greatest pop singers.

It’s Krauss’ simple, precise soprano, which occasionally soars
with bell-like beauty, that makes her an artist for the world rather than just
a tiny corner of it. Krauss’ vocals are as piercing as ever on New
Favorite, but as is a standard ratio on Union Station albums, Krauss only
sings lead on eight of 13 tracks. That Krauss is so willing to share space
with her bandmates despite her considerable personal stardom says a lot for
her own lack of ego and commitment to collective creation, but for listeners
outside the bluegrass world it still means that New Favorite is only
two-thirds of an album. The cuts that don’t feature Krauss are first-rate as
genre pieces — the instrumental “Choctaw Hayride” showcases the
nimble work of world-class pickers Jerry Douglas (dobro) and Ron Block
(banjo), while guitarist Dan Tyminski’s lead vocals on four other cuts are
suitably high and lonesome — but that’s all they are.

Fans may have expected Krauss and company to make a more
“old-timey” record after the success of the O Brother, Where Art
Thou? soundtrack, but New Favorite is a very modern-sounding
bluegrass record. Krauss’ vocals — especially on “The Lucky One”
and “Crazy Faith” — provide most of the sparks; she’s such an ace
singer that not even a Dan Fogelberg cover (“Stars”) can hold her
back. — Chris Herrington

Grade: B+

Born To Do It

Craig David

(Atlantic)

The obscure grammar of British dance music doesn’t translate well
to American ears, so Craig David’s roots in two-step will prove virtually
meaningless on these shores. In the American music climate, his debut album,
Born To Do It, which has sold millions in Europe and Asia, will likely
be perceived either as R&B or as bubblegum pop.

As an R&B crooner, David has neither the audacity of
sensitive thugs such as R. Kelly nor the gritty soulfulness of bohos such as
D’Angelo, and his beats are too thin and calculated to stand up to hip-hop
artists such as Outkast. David obviously takes his cues from American artists,
but he either comes across as hopelessly out of date (dropping Craig Mack’s
mid-’90s single “Flava in Ya Ear”) or just plain silly. For
instance, “Booty Man,” his cringe-worthy reimagining of “Candy
Man,” is flabby compared to classic butt songs like “Baby Got
Back.”

David’s music, however, does fare much better against that made
by domestic boybands. Next to the Backstreet Boys and ‘N Sync, the 20-year-old
Brit’s songs sound truly soulful and almost revolutionary. “Fill Me
In,” “Walking Away,” and “7 Days” boast better and
more insistent hooks than anything teen pop has given us in the past four
years. Still, like those pop singers trying to write their own music, David
has room to improve, particularly when it comes to his all-grown-up loverman
image. Too often, his boasts of sexual prowess and chick magnetism overwhelm
the innocent pop pleasures of the songs and border on creepy and
predatory.

As Born To Do It is exported to America, many of its
pleasures may wind up lost in translation. Too pop to appeal to American
R&B fans and too R&B for the teen-pop crowd, David may prove to be a
hard sell on this side of the Atlantic.

— Stephen Deusner

Grade: B-

Global A Go-Go

Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros

(Hellcat Records)

With Global A Go-Go, Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros
finally get it right. Although it explores the same territory as their last
release, the world-music romp of 1999’s Rock Art and the X-Ray Style,
with this album the former Clash frontman and his latest band traverse it with
considerably more skill and finesse. A few years of playing together as a band
and touring have brought a cohesiveness and focus to the music that was
missing in their previous ragtag debut. As he’s gotten older, Strummer’s
tendency to preach has also mercifully waned, though he’s still inserting wry
and often hilarious social commentary into his lyrics.

Strummer and his London bandmates surf the wave of global music,
dipping into whatever suits them and fighting the “blanding out” (as
Strummer calls it) of the contemporary music scene. The Mescaleros mix low
tech and high tech with marvelous results, using synthesizers and sampling as
well as witch-doctor bells and a cardboard box. From the blast of guitar funk
on “Cool ‘N’ Out” to the spaghetti western touches on the title
track (hokey the last time around but perfect here), the album blasts off and
almost never slows down. The only downer is the closing track, a cover of an
old Celtic fiddle tune, which is pleasant enough but at 17 minutes-plus starts
to resemble a drunken ceilidh. For the most part, though, Global A Go-
Go hums with unsurpassed energy and vitality. With an ambience so heady,
even songs set in Chinese take-aways assume mythic proportions. Which is
exactly how rock-and-roll should be. — Lisa Lumb

Grade: A-

Ruby Series

Rebecca Gates

(Badman)

Records like this will remind you that there are only so many
hours in the day. Rebecca Gates’ former enterprise, the Spinanes, was nothing
more than a pleasant mediocrity. They had their moments of inspiration while
being drug through the ’90s by Sub Pop, specifically before drummer Scott
Plouf left to drum for Built To Spill. But overall the Spinanes were a flicker
amongst fire.

Relocating from Seattle to Chicago brought in the usual suspects
for the last proper Spinanes album (1998’s Arches and Aisles) and this,
Gates’ first proper solo album, Ruby Series. The omnipresent John
McIntire (Sea and Cake, Tortoise) shows up to hand out his obvious dregs in
the form of some trampled-on beats and flourishes then presumably proceeds to
sit around checking his e-mail for the rest of the recording session. The
whole thing is a vapid, tired affair that sounds like a token
“weird” record that Quincy Jones might have made for Suzanne Vega
sometime around 1988. The only feeling or soul within miles is saved for the
last, spacious track, which might have made for a nice split single or
compilation item but instead closes out a pathetic example of a semicompetent
songwriter trying to “get with the times” after the
“times” have long disappeared. — Andrew Earles

Grade: D

Overdub

Davíd Garza

(Lava/Atlantic)

On his first two albums, Texas singer-songwriter Davíd Garza played a brand of caffeinated, highly danceable pop music built on infectious Latin rhythms and intelligent, heartfelt lyrics. But on his third album, 1995’s Blind Hips In Motion, he opted for a drastically different sound that relied on lots of production quirks and drum loops and severely downplayed live instrumentation. A transitional record, Blind Hips was thudding and lifeless, its songs overburdened with weighty sonics. Garza’s follow-up, the inconsistent This Euphoria, opened up his sound a little more, with a few songs like the effervescent “Discoball World” (a big hit in another universe) and the reggae-flavored “Slave” recalling the energy and liveliness of his earlier work.

Overdub, his fifth album, takes Garza one step further in this evolution, combining the rhythmic delights of his first two albums with the studio experimentation of his last two. It’s his most cohesive and musically adventurous album to date, and it shakes and rocks down unpredictable avenues. The opener, “Drone,” is no such thing: It bounces around as Garza sings in his rubbery voice about how the newness and excitement of being a musician have worn off. Elsewhere, “Blow My Mind” pogos about until it hits an instrumental coda that takes on a life of its own, and “Easter Lily” contains one of his best pop hooks yet.

Curious, though, is the attitude of many of Garza’s lyrics, in which bitterness contrasts the songs’ lightheaded pleasures. The catchy-as-hell first single, “Say Baby,” laments his inability to get his songs played on the radio: “If they ain’t down with your dublingo/If they don’t hear no single deejays won’t play your jam unless you say ‘baby, baby, baby.'”

Such cynicism can be jarring, especially on an album that sounds this lively and upbeat. How unfortunate that Garza is so pessimistic about his career when his music has never sounded so good. — Stephen Deusner

Grade: B+

Bait and Switch

Andre Williams

(Norton Records)

Raised by an aunt in one of the worst housing projects in Detroit, R&B singer Andre Williams hustled his way into the music biz while still a teenager. Best known for his work at the Fortune label in the mid-1950s (“Bacon Fat” and “Jail Bait” were his biggest singles), Williams forged new ground as a front man. Fully aware that his vocal abilities weren’t up to par with the leading talents of the day, he talked or rapped his lyrics over a tight backup band. Unfortunately, Williams eventually faded from the scene after an 18-month stint with Ike Turner’s band left him a full-blown junkie.

It took several decades, but Williams managed to clean up and get back to business. Much in the music world had changed in the years since he’d been gone, but “Mr. Rhythm,” as he was known in his early days, soon carved himself a niche — in the punk arena fronting garage-rock bands. Over the past four years, Williams has released three albums, performing with indie-rock bands such as the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, the Demolition Doll Rods, and the Sadies. His own indie debut, Silky, turned a whole new generation on to his risqué — but rhythmic — vocal delivery.

With his latest release, Bait and Switch, it’s clear that Williams’ raunchy rap has only gotten dirtier over the years, and when backed by the all-star band producer Billy Miller assembled for this project, the results are, ahem, spicy — and rated triple-X.

Williams speaks with authority on the autobiographical “Soul Brother In Heaven and Hell”: “If you stick it in/You gotta take it out/Everybody knows what life is about.” Cool snaps and a bent guitar riff hold the track together as Williams falls apart, screaming “Get off your ass,” then recovers nicely for the next song, a duet with Ronnie Spector. The two breathe new life into Ike and Tina Turner’s “It’s Gonna Work Out Fine,” while labelmate Rudy Ray lends his talents to a sleazy version of the Crawford Brothers’ “I Ain’t Guilty.” Lonnie Youngblood holds down the sax duties as Robert Quine (ex-Voidoid) provides searing guitar licks that punctuate Williams’ vocals with power and panache.

Sassy, boozy, and extremely fun, Bait and Switch puts Andre Williams right back on top. R&B ain’t dead yet! — Andria Lisle

Grade: A-

AM Gold

Zero Zero

(Jade Tree)

Former emo musicians deciding to make electro-pop is as common as a stand-up comedian deciding to take a drink of water onstage. Throw in an unhealthy dose of poorly utilized humor and you have a mini-movement on your hands. Take Zero Zero as a prime example: Half of revered hardcore/emo (or “screamo”) movers Lifetime take off to the land of kitchen-sink studio wizardry and fill an album with bouncy, exotica-sprinkled sounds and cutesy adolescents-in-their-20s vocals. They use their Irony 101 skills and newly discovered dollar-bin laughs (including the backbone to Hall and Oates’ “She’s Gone”) to make it sampler-unsafe for everything in sight. Fittingly, the whole package is wrapped in eye-popping album art that looks exactly like a Looking Glass greatest hits album.

While I don’t find this approach amusing, I do find the music to be enjoyable. I derive extreme pleasure from a great big silly hook in pop music. These particular songwriters have hooks and chops to burn, along with enough energy to keep the album from lapsing into the pointless noodle-noise danger zone. If you are going to be a flash in the pan, the least you can do is sound as fun as Zero Zero.

— Andrew Earles

Grade: B-

Laser Beam Next Door

The Silos

(Checkered Past)

What happens when a touring/bar band unexpectedly makes a highly listenable record that invites repeated plays and more than casual appreciation? The Silos probably would disagree with the bar-band label and the unexpected part, but that is what seems to have happened on their latest, Laser Beam Next Door. The band’s previous recordings never sounded this straightforward and rocking. The Silos are down to a three-piece now, based once again in New York City, with guitarist/singer Walter Salas-Humara penning most of the tunes and contributing lead vocals on all selections.

The record is a compendium of familiar-sounding riffs and choruses from mid-’70s to early ’80s rock radio which somehow avoids sounding clichéd and cheesy due to the band’s strong performances and Salas-Humara’s songwriting chops. The band seems sincere without being stupid about proudly playing this brand of lumpen rock, a kind of thinking man’s Bachman-Turner Overdrive (not that the world needs something like that just right now). Even on the two Spanish-language songs there is no weary whiff of world beat, just a couple of rock tunes sung in a different language. The Silos aren’t arty minimalists, but they do prove that paring down and simplifying can sometimes be a good commercial — as well as artistic — strategy. — Ross Johnson

Grade: B+

St. Louis Blues

Archie Shepp

(Jazz Magnet)

Archie Shepp, besides being a playwright and professor, is one of the more notable musicians to come out of the avant-garde (or free) movement that revolutionized jazz in the 1960s. He was considered a fearsome intellectual who articulated his rage at social injustice through his vitriolic and very original tenor sax solos when he wasn’t decrying established cultural dogma within earshot of anyone who would listen. But as that decade crept to a close, Shepp seemed to have worn himself out, content to experiment with and explore the African-American tradition in music with the intensity he once reserved for protest.

Forty or so years and innumerable recordings later, Shepp offers an accomplished and beautifully cerebral homage to the blues and its gospel underpinnings. Joining him on St. Louis Blues are the brilliant Richard Davis on bass and fellow free jazz veteran Sunny Murray on drums. Davis, also a professor, is a classicist who works acoustic-only and is associated more with hard bop. A technical master, Davis is also a veteran of several symphony orchestras, including Stravinsky’s, but is known best as an inimitable asset on any session. Murray, a propulsive drummer, is more fastidious in style than many of his contemporaries. His unique approach focuses not on laying down a steady beat or keeping a tune’s rhythm (he was one of the first to diverge from the norm) but on a meandering parallel accompaniment to the dominant instruments. Guest percussionist Leopoldo Fleming provides an intuitive mix of bongos and other accentuating instruments on all tracks.

W.C. Handy’s “St. Louis Blues” and Billie Holiday’s “God Bless the Child” feature brief passages of Shepp’s guileless vocals, much informed by the spiritual longings of gospel. His tenor sax invokes the melodies of these compositions without running them over, while Davis and Murray intimate the songs’ time-worn phrases. Much more exciting, though, are some of the players’ own compositions. Murray’s “Et Moi” allows Shepp to wander off into Eastern territory, punctuating with the bravura patois of his sax the rhythm stressed so furtively by Murray, while the throbbing cadence of Davis’ bass fluidly dominates the low range. Davis’ “Total Package” might best be described as trippy as hell. A mind-bending piece opened and transfixed by Davis’ use of a bow on his bass, “Total Package” is a wide-open space in which all involved seem to submit to the personal nature of their instrument, whether it be clamorous (drums), meditative (bass), or existential (sax), and enter into an exalted dialogue that ends when Murray, suddenly wild, strikes the resolution into tinkling abeyance, as if revealing some unfocused psychological dread or impatience with the exchange. — Jeremy Spencer

Grade: A-

Drawn From Life

Brian Eno and Peter Schwalm

(Astralwerks)

Abandon the cliché of song structure (as Brian Eno has done very aggressively during the last 20 years or so) and sooner or later you court the risk of embracing the cliché of meandering noise. It’s that old avant-garde catch that vexed thoughtful musicians during the last century. Throw out the predictable tyranny of musical form and chances are you’ll end up making a bunch of noise that is interesting and challenging to play but also duller than dishwater to hear. Formless noise often ends up sounding like, well, formless noise. It may be liberating and exciting to make such noise, but listeners are often left out in the cold and excluded by the sonic difficulty of such music.

Brian Eno has usually stayed on the pretty side of this “sound for the sake of sound” divide, making one album after another of pleasant, formless synthesizer noodling. Bad Bri was New Age before there was such a thing. Laying blame for the likes of Kitaro and the entire Windham Hill catalog at his feet may be more than a little unfair, but he was the first one out of the box to achieve some notoriety and sales for his brand of ambient music-making/theorizing in the late ’70s. And his career as a producer/collaborator with Talking Heads, David Bowie, and U2 (you gotta feel sorry for the guy there; imagine having to humor Bono as a serious thinker) further makes a case for his allegiance to looking like an edgy, groundbreaking artist while remaining a serviceable hack for recycled ideas. Speaking of recycled ideas, this new one by Eno and Peter Schwalm is full of them, lots of familiar-sounding Yamaha keyboard programming and lush, vaporous washes of percussion (courtesy of Schwalm, who appears to be something of a conservatory-trained percussionist; these pieces are even listed as being “composed” by the two of them). Like his 1995 collaboration with bassist Jah Wobble on Spinner, this is a soothing sound-effects record and not much more. — Ross Johnson

Grade: B

Listening Log

Devil’s Night — D-12 (Interscope): Eminem and his Detroit homies/flunkies with a posse record that really is the collection of cheap, mostly pointless, occasionally reckless shock tactics that clueless sorts claimed The Marshall Mathers LP was. But that little white boy still spits like a champ. (“Purple Pills,” “Fight Music,” “Revelation”)

Grade: B-

Neighborhoods — Olu Dara (Atlantic): A (coffee) house party thrown by a jazz/blues vet who witnessed “the embryonic state of hip hop” — aka “young children’s music” — and got something out of it. (“Massamba,” “Neighborhoods,” “I See the Light”)

Grade: B

Cabin In the Hills — Merle Haggard (Relentless Nashville): One of our greatest living singers with a casual, stripped-down little gospel record that mixes originals and standards but peaks with an Iris Dement cover. (“Farther Along,” “Lord Don’t Give Up On Me,” “Shores of Jordan”)

Grade: B+

Hi-Teknology — Hi-Tek (Rawkus): Native Tongues — The Next Generation. Cincinnati DJ Hi-Tek recruits a passel of singers and MCs, some known (Common, Mos Def, Talib Kweli), most not, for a sharp, tasteful set of East Coast hip hop. (“The Sun God,” “All I Need Is You,” “Round and Round”)

Grade: B+

You’ve Seen Us You Must Have Seen Us — KaitO (Devil In the Woods): If Veruca Salt had been European art-punks with a better handle on sonics than songs. (“Go,” “Catnap,” “Shoot Shoot”)

Grade: B-

Cachaito — Orlando Cachaito Lopez (World Circuit/Nonesuch): The Buena Vista Social Club’s sexagenarian bassist with a long-awaited solo joint that’s likely the most adventurous and playful record to yet emerge from the Cuban roots renaissance. (“Mis Dos Pequenas,” “Cachaito In Laboratory,” “Conversacion”)

Grade: A-

Blue Boy — Ron Sexsmith (SpinArt): The production switch from Tchad Blake and Mitchell Froom’s claustrophobic atmospherics to Steve Earle’s more live-and-loose sound opens up the celebrated singer-songwriter’s mopey music considerably, but Earle can’t do much for Sexsmith’s mumble-mouth vocals. On the scale of alt-oriented, white-guy singer-songwriters, a notch below Elliott Smith, several notches below Freedy Johnston. (“This Song,” “Cheap Hotel,” “Just My Heart Talkin'”) n — Chris Herrington

Grade: B

Avalon Blues: A Tribute To the Music of

Mississippi John Hurt

Various Artists

(Vanguard)

This 15-song, 15-artist tribute to the music of late, great bluesman Mississippi John Hurt is the latest installment of Vanguard’s recent reexploration of the Hurt legacy, which began with the 1998 one-disc anthology Rediscovered. That 24-song compilation deserves to be an essential part of any record collection, but for listeners who wanted more, Vanguard released the three-disc The Complete Studio Recordings last year, repackaging ’60s albums Today!, The Immortal Mississippi John Hurt, and Last Sessions.

The body of work collected on those reissues is one of the most distinctive the blues has thus far produced — warm, gentle, wise — and features some of the most endearing compositions in all of American popular song. With such a rich body of work still obscure to the average music fan, Hurt would seem an ideal candidate for a tribute record, and Avalon Blues is an admirable effort. But tribute albums are still a dicey proposition: I’ve only heard one great one, 1997’s The Songs of Jimmie Rodgers, and if Hurt’s material is as worthy of investigation as Rodgers’, the key difference between the two albums is that Avalon Blues doesn’t boast quite as A-list a lineup as the Bob Dylan-produced Rodgers tribute.

With all the source material of similar style and quality, it’s no surprise that the artists who stand out the most on Avalon Blues are those who are most compelling on their own terms or who — for better or worse — invest Hurt’s songs with their own personalities.

Lucinda Williams and Gillian Welch have both been accused of pretension and overly studied vocals (though seldom by the same critics), but a comparison of Williams’ “Angels Laid Him Away” and Welch’s “Beulah Land” illustrates the difference between perfectionist genius (Williams) and hopeless mimicry (Welch). Williams owns “Angels Laid Him Away” so completely that if you didn’t know otherwise, you’d never guess that it isn’t one of her own songs. Welch’s “Beulah Land” (and is there any doubt that she would choose such an “old-timey” title to cover?) is a painstaking but hollow reproduction, just the kind of arch performance that’s won her hosannahs from roots fetishists over the last few years.

Elsewhere, Alvin Youngblood Hart is great as usual with his Memphis-recorded, one-man-band take on “Here I Am, Oh Lord, Send Me,” while Victoria Williams, whose skittish innocence can be charming in some settings, turns in a nearly unlistenable performance with her too-precious take on the Hurt classic “Since I’ve Laid My Burden Down.” And Beck’s solid, straight-faced take on “Stagger Lee” (recorded at Sun Studios in 1994) is highly recommended to fans of his acoustic K Records album One Foot In the Grave.

Folkie Bill Morrisey (“Pay Day”) and eclectic bluesman Taj Mahal (“My Creole Belle”) probably owe more to Hurt than anyone else on Avalon Blues, and both acquit themselves well. Of the journeymen roots performers who make up the bulk of the record and whose performances convey less personality, Chris Smither and John Hiatt come across best, offering fine takes on “Frankie & Albert” and “I’m Satisfied,” respectively, while Bruce Cockburn (“Avalon, My Home Town”) and Mark Selby (whose gruff vocal and insistent backbeat are unwelcome additions to perhaps Hurt’s most charming song, “Make Me a Pallet On Your Floor”) don’t fare quite as well.

In all, Avalon Blues is well worth your time but not if you haven’t “rediscovered” Hurt himself first. — Chris Herrington

Grade: B+

Nuggets II: Original Artyfacts from the

British Empire and Beyond 1965-69

Various Artists

(Rhino Records)

As the follow-up to the landmark 1998 four-disc re-release of Lenny Kaye’s 1972 garage-rock comp Nuggets, Nuggets II follows the global dissemination of four pop meta-themes: simplicity (“Three chords and the truth”), brevity (“in three minutes or less”), misanthropy (“‘cos I’m so misunderstood”) and — will we ever learn? — misogyny (“and my woman’s such a cold bitch”). It’s also an encomium for the singles culture of the ’60s, which was also the last time white foreigners earnestly attempted to replicate the nasty electric rhythm and blues of Howlin’ Wolf, John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, and other luminaries.

However, rhythm and blues is just a starting point. The snarl and pout of the pre-’65 Stones is all over this superb box set, but so are the noise of the Stooges’ debut and the sonic shimmer of Hendrix’s ballads. Amazingly, the results are never nostalgic. Nuggets II is a tougher listen than its predecessor in every respect: more songs, fewer recognizable hits, more feedback, fewer ballads, more copies of songs you’ve heard before (Procol Harum and the Who are two more apparently bottomless fountains of rip-off), and more evidence that anyone — anyone in the universe — can make great rock-and-roll. Music this brittle, propulsive, corrosive, and obstinately mid-fi can start to dismantle your brain after more than two consecutive discs’ worth, but once your freakout resistors and retroactive PC receptors are burned out, the shoulda-been hits never stop.

The annual flood of legitimate reissues and repackaged product virtually guarantees that you could enjoy great, unheard music every year without actually buying anything from the year you’re living in. Thus, tiny, specialized niches are too easy to fall in these days — rock-and-roll generalists are becoming as rare as generalist historians. So generalists and collectors alike should rejoice at this spirited, revelatory revision of rock-and-roll history. Unfortunately, prima facie evidence of a vibrant international pop underground that stretches back at least 40 years shouldn’t be such a specialized item. But seldom has consumer courage reaped such rich dividends. Points of entry, two of which are on the fourth disc: The Master’s Apprentices’ “War or Hands of Time,” the Mops’ “I’m Just a Mops,” Los Shakers’ “Break It All,” the Marmalade’s “I See the Rain,” and the Easybeats’ ebullient classic “Friday on My Mind.” Actually, you may have heard that last one. — Addison Engelking

Grade: A+

Tell the Truth

Lee Roy Parnell

(Vanguard)

Although Lee Roy Parnell’s past work sometimes deteriorated into country-rock schlock, it was always redeemed by his considerable guitar talents. Parnell has that rare Santana-ish ability to make one note soar and shimmer over everything else, and his slidework manages to conjure up shades of Duane Allman yet be innovative at the same time. With Tell the Truth, his first recording for an independent label, he’s finally hit his stride. Once again, he tackles gospel, blues, country, and rock. But in a smart move, Parnell hooked up with veteran songwriter Dan Penn for several tracks, and the result is an album that’s carried by songs of substance as well as his versatile guitar. In addition, Parnell recruited the grand duchess and duke of honky tonk and country blues, Bonnie Bramlett and Delbert McClinton, for some feisty duets, as well as ace fingerpicker Keb’ Mo’ for some down-home acoustic blues.

Parnell reminds me of a Texas version of Sonny Landreth, another full-steam-ahead rocker whose songs are driven by ferocious guitar work and who also mines his regional roots for inspiration. Like Landreth, Parnell can rip it up most righteously, especially with McClinton on the barrelhouse boogie track “South By Southwest.” But he also has the potential to go further, showing his soulful side on a ballad with Bramlett and with the very Southern guitar that graces the sensual ending of “Guardian Angel.” Despite a few stilted moments on one confessional track, Tell the Truth is a fresh start that shows off Parnell’s many talents to perfection. — Lisa Lumb

Grade: B+

You can e-mail Chris Herrington at herrington@memphisflyer.com.