Ten Things 2007: Number One

A series of posts spotlighting some things that made a bad year bearable.

1. "Is It News," Doyle Bramhall's amazing new genre-transcending CD.

Doyle Bramhall -- not to be confused with his guitar-slinging son, Doyle II -- is probably best known for his contribution as a songwriter to some of the late Stevie Ray Vaughan's biggest hits. Not to mention his influence (obvious once you've heard him) on SRV's vocal style, and his status as one of the great drummers in this line of music.

As his label, YepRoc, puts it, Bramhall had a key role in helping to create "the largest audience the blues has ever known." I suspect this new CD will further expand that audience.

Up to now, Bramhall's albums have been distinguished by matchless covers of songs like "I Can See Clearly Now," reborn as a Texas roadhouse rocker, and O. V. Wright's "I'd Rather Be Blind, Crippled and Crazy."

"Is It News" changes all that. This CD is all originals. Some of them are instant classics, like "Lost in the Congo" and "I'll Take You Away," the best new soul song I have heard in way too long a time. If radio stations played this kind of music, people would believe in radio again.

The album is somehow both thoroughly modern-sounding, even edgy, while also being a throwback to the days when bluesmen like Jimmy Reed routinely ignored the genre police and crashed the pop charts.

If you're a fan of rocking Texas R&B music, you probably didn't think they made records like this anymore. If you're among the people who think they're not supposed to like this kind of music, you may be surprised by your own answer to the question posed by the title.

You can hear four songs from the CD on Bramhall's MySpace page:

http://myspace.com/doylebramhall1

One of the Great Kill Shots

"I feel like Trotsky being rubbed out of the photograph," says Dave Marsh, whose name will always be synonymous with Creem, no matter who buys the "naming rights."

It's like somebody who toured with them for 15 minutes grabbing the rights to The Byrds name, using it to put some bar band on the Wallapaloozer circuit, and treating Roger McGuinn as a marginal figure. Oh wait, did that already happen?

Best NW Recording -- Thank You, CBA

Tom Dantoni just called to let me know that the Cascade Blues Association has named "The Last of the Best" as NW Recording of the Year.

The CBA's version of the Oscar is the coveted Muddy Award, named of course for Muddy Waters. Tom emceed the event this year.

Apparently my bandmates Peter Dammann and Dave Kahl also won individual Muddies for their work on electric guitar and bass.

And if I understood Tom correctly, our Paul deLay tribute show at the Waterfront Blues Festival (for which we were joined by many great artists, including Duffy Bishop, Mark Dufresne, George Bisharat, and past members of the deLay band), was voted Performance of the Year.

Flatlining the Second Line

Way down yonder in New Orleans, where "unpermitted assemblies are against the law."

How Indie Music Lost Its Soul

An unmissable New Yorker article, which attempts to explain why rock and roll appears to have resegregated in the 1990s.