I Am The Blues is a budget-priced 14-song compilation, originally released on Prestige Elite in 2002, that collects most of his best-known sides that he recorded for Chicago's United Records in the early 1950s. On all of these cuts, which range from slow to midtempo, Memphis Slim displays a warmth and ambiance that displays an urban sophistication rarely heard outside of Chicago, yet nothing comes across as forced or self-conscious. Instead the good times roll by with numbers like "Ballin' The Jack", "I Am The Blues", "Sassy Mae", and "Ramble This Highway"; all should be accessible to blues novices and favorites of electric blues aficionados. Liner notes are virtually non-existent, but the price is right; a good, concise introduction.
Rita Lee: Bossa 'n' Beatles
Rita Lee had been a member of Brazil's most influential rock group, the seminal Os Mutantes in the late 1960s. Bossa 'n' Beatles is her idiosyncratic 2002 take on the Beatles, with the bossa nova rhythms the title promises, but with a refreshingly iconoclastic art-pop sensibility that makes this more than yet another vanity collection of Beatle covers.
The opener, "A Hard Days Night," is given a colorful funk-rock treatment that only hints at bossa-nova in its beats; "All My Loving" is more in the traditional vein of Astrud Gilberto. "If I Fell", on the other hand, is given a more modern bossa treatment. "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds", which is based on on electronically treated piano and features blurry whooshes and sound effects is at once sensual and experimental; "If I Fell" and "In My Life" appear in both English versions and Portuguese versions. There's no shortage of Beatle tribute albums, and most are pretty ho-hum; this one actually merits more than one spin. While the song selection, which also includes "Michelle", "She Loves You", "I Want To Hold Your Hand", "With A Little Help From My Friends" and "Here, There, And Everywhere" is not the most inspired or eclectic selection of possible songs to cover, Lee manages to infuse enough distinct character into each to get these old workhorses to reveal something new about themselves. Not for everybody, but those who consider the "Girl From Ipenema" a guilty pleasure will enjoy this stuff.
Anaal Nakrakh: When Fire Rains Down from the Sky, Mankind Will Reap as It Has Sown
An English duo of vocalist V.I.T.R.I.O.L. (Dave Hunt, ex-Mistress, ex-Benediction) and Irrumator (Mick Kenney, owner of Nekrodeath studios and former member of Aborym, Frost, Mistress) Anaal Nakrakh's stated purpose is to provide the soundtrack to the apocalypse. Formed in 1999, the band adapts Norwegain-style death metal for the English speaking masses, and pretty much delivers the goods. How much you need these goods depends on your tolerance level for demonic roars over hyperspeed metal; with me, I like it in small doses. So When Fire Rains Down from the Sky, Mankind Will Reap as It Has Sown, originally released in 2003, a six-song EP, is good enough for me.
Article comments
1 - Diane Ensey
One of the best concerts I have every gone to was Rita Lee's first concert in Brasilia after being censored/banned by the government. That was 1983. There was a cyclone fence between the crowd and that stage was pushed down pretty fast. When the police started hitting people who were trying to get close to the stage Rita stopped singing and lambasted the police. They backed off.
2 - uao
Hey that's a great anecdote, Diane! Thanks for sharing the memory, I love it when people do that.