5 Songs May 17, 2024

Some of these songs aren't easy to categorize; all are easy to love

Eric Ambel – “Feel So Good” 2004 from Knucklehead. While hardly a household name, Eric Ambel has had a pretty darned good career over the last 45 years. He was in Joan Jett’s band right before she broke big, then the Del-Lords, who always should have broken big, then he’s released solo records and been in the Yayhoos, a collective of rockers who should have broken big, and he’s produced the Bottle Rockets, the Blood Oranges, and Sarah Borges, among many others who, you guessed it, should have broken big. All along the way, his heart and commitment to loud and dirty but fun and meaningful rock’n’roll has never wavered. This cut opens up one of his best solo records – as if any of them were bad – with a heart-on-the-sleeve vocal and some passionately expressive guitar solos. He’s kind of channeling Beggars Banquet era Stones here. And making it his own.

Mighty Sam McLain and Knut Reiersrud – “Long Time Running” 2011 from One Drop Is Plenty. Mighty Sam McLain has never been one of the most well known of soul/blues vocalists, but he’s been doing it since the 1960s. As of this 2011 collaboration with the only somewhat younger Norwegian guitarist Knut Reiersrud, he was still in complete control of his voice. His phrasing, his ability to hold back until just the right word requires emphasis, his delicate vibrato are all signs of a master at work. Reiersrud has an equally beautiful guitar tone on this ballad of recrimination and search for salvation. There is a gospel feel to this song, but the character in the song is hoping to be forgiven by a lover. He’s made mistakes, and now he’s “on the one way track / To the land of the living / And I’m never turning back.” The guitar solo is exquisite while the band kicks into high gear behind Reiersrud, who then gives a few responses to McLain’s vocal on the final verse. Really a masterpiece.

The Blind Boys of Alabama featuring Bonnie Raitt – “When the Spell Is Broken” 2009 from Duets. Is it technically a duet when one party is a single woman and the other party is five men singing in harmony? I’m not worried about semantics, though, because the concept was good enough to enable the existence of this glorious version of Richard Thompson’s typically gloomy gem. Thompson himself is an effective singer, but there is no question that Raitt negotiates the tricky reaches into the upper register much better than he ever did. And the responses of the Blind Boys to her calls are sweeter than even the combined voices of Clive Gregson and Christine Collister on the original. The Blind Boys have often crossed into secular music over especially the latter part of their more than 80 years as a gospel brand, but I’m not sure they ever were part of a record this cynically disconsolate about the end of a love affair. Raitt’s slide guitar solo is a harsh counterpoint to the beauty of the singing the rest of the way, too.

Charlie Haden & Antonio Forcione – “La Pasionara” 2006 from Heartplay. Now this is a proper duet. The incomparable jazz bassist Haden and the unknown-to-me Italian acoustic guitarist Forcione team up here on a tune Haden wrote back in 1983 and recorded multiple times. It’s dedicated to Dolores Ibarruri, a heroine of the Spanish Civil War. The melody itself is exquisite, one of the most beautiful Haden ever composed. Forcione plays it with a touch of the Mediterranean, letting the melody breathe among chords and rhythmic flourishes. Haden’s dense bass tone underpins the guitar and dances to a different (invisible and silent) drummer most of the way. His long solo in the middle of the performance pulls fragments of the tune but refuses to let them resolve, suggesting the difficulties of La Pasionara’s life. Forcione comes back at the end, though, to remind us that Ibarruri did return to Spain after Franco died and served in the same congress she had before he took power.

Josh White – “Did You Read That Letter” 1936 available on Blues Singer 1932-1936. I have gaping holes in my knowledge of acoustic blues, most obviously in the Piedmont traditions from the southeast. I don’t know if I ever heard Josh White before I discovered this wonderful gospel song. He seems to have received a missive from King Jesus which tells him his sins have been washed away, and he sings this little tale with conviction and clarity. But what really knocks me out is the vigorous finger-picked guitar playing. It’s somehow hard and sweet at the same time, and it occasionally becomes a second cousin to the much more familiar “Baby Please Don’t Go” from the Mississippi Delta tradition. White would go on to become a major figure in the folk revival of the early 60s, but this deep gospel blues number offers no hint of that sort of thing.