Here’s a rundown of recent releases that do an exemplary job of packaging classic or rare recordings from the past for CD listeners.
More Top Picks Cornholes
Various artists
For the Love ofHarry–Everybody Sings Nilsson (MusicMasters) (star) (star) (star) (star)
Harry Nilsson
Personal Best–The Harry Nilsson Anthology (RCA) (star) (star) (star) (star)
The “tribute album” plague (President Clinton’s brother must be the only “artist” yet untributed) has actually spawned a winner with “For the Love of Harry,” largely because Nilsson wrote great songs, a requirement usually ignored by record companies when such projects are planned. The irony with Nilsson is that “Without You” and “Everybody’s Talkin’,” the two songs most closely associated with him, were not his own, and thus do not appear on the tribute.
They do show up on the two-CD “Personal Best” anthology, which does a superb job of covering his decade with RCA. Nilsson himself chose these 49 songs before his death last year, and the set contains the expected ditties like “Me and My Arrow” and “Coconut,” along with rarities, remixes and four previously unissued tunes. Nilsson could use his silvery, stratospheric voice to do an alchemist’s job on other writers’ material, while everyone from Phil Spector to the Beatles loved his songwriting.
This adoration is attested to by the fact that the artists on “For the Love of Harry” recorded the tunes at their own expense, with all profits going to the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. Highlights include Randy Newman’s “Remember,” Beckley/Lamm/Wilson’s “Without Her,” John Cowan’s “Don’t Leave Me,” and Joe Ely’s rendition of Nilsson’s delicious country music sendup, “Joy.” Now if RCA really wants to honor Nilsson, it’ll reissue his entire catalog, starting with the obscure near-masterpiece “Knnillssonn.”
– David Duckman
Flaco Jimenez
Flaco’s First (Arhoolie) (star) (star) (star)
Various artists
The Khoury Recordings–The Early 1950s (Arhoolie) (star) (star) (star)
The ability to make archival music available for popular consumption, in clean-sounding renditions, is one of the great side benefits of the CD revolution. It’s especially fun to enter the vaults of long-forgotten regional labels to sample the original recordings of now-celebrated artists and audibly witness the long-buried roots of their music. Arhoolie is a company noted for discovering and re-releasing such valuable material, as well as repackaging obscure ethnic and regional fare.
Early Cajun and border music is well represented in the Arhoolie catalog. In these two albums, originally made in the ’50s for the RIO and Khoury labels, we get to hear the first recordings of young bayou fiddler Dewey Balfa and conjunto accordion legend Flaco Jimenez, as members of Elise Deshotel’s ensemble and Los Caminantes, respectively. Both would go on to influence their musical genres in ways that would make these recordings little more than footnotes in long, successful careers. But fans will get a kick out of hearing the raw enthusiasm and unpolished musicality here. History is rarely this much of a hoot. (For an Arhoolie Catalog, send $2 to 10341 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito, Calif. 94530.)
– Gary Dretzka
Merle Haggard
Same Train, A Different Time (Koch) (star) (star) (star) (star)
The Lonesome Fugitive (Razor & Tie) (star) (star) (star) 1/2
In 1994 the country-music Establishment finally paid due respects to Merle Haggard. At long last, he was added to the Hall of Fame and became the subject of two fine tribute albums and a TNN documentary. For anyone who needs to be enlightened as to what all the fuss was about, these new collections of vintage Haggard recordings will prove invaluable.
“Same Train, A Different Time” is Hag’s salute in song to the great Jimmie Rodgers, one of country music’s first stars and an artist who merged the sounds of white mountain music with black blues and New Orleans jazz–and managed to turn the yodel into a soulful expression of joy and pain. First released in 1969, when “Okie From Muskogee” had made Haggard a hero to some and goat to others, this essential double album got lost in the controversy. His loving re-creations of such classics as “California Blues,” “Peach Picking Time Down in Georgia,” “Miss the Mississippi and You” and “Waitin’ for a Train” are splendid examples of Rodgers’ style and slices of an America long gone.
More Top Picks Weighted Blankets For Kids Benefits And Safety Rules
Razor & Tie’s anthology covers the bountiful Capitol years 1963 to 1977, and introduces four early Tally sides. Most of the great prison, drinking and common-man ballads are here, along with lovely standards such as “Today I Started Loving You Again” (and a few maudlin patriotic numbers as well). Songs from the later years display the evolving musicality of Haggard and his Strangers band.
– Gary Dretzka