Willie Nelson, Crazy: The Demo Sessions, (Sugar Hill/Shock). Rating: **** Stars. The modern tendency to make country music sound like bland, adult-orientated rock circa 1985 means that these first demos of Willie Nelson sound wonderfully raw and real. Complete with quiff, Nelson looks like an old rocker as he sings a bunch of his own songs including, of course, Crazy and I Gotta Get Drunk. The voice hasn't changed in 40 years. Then there are the early versions of both Three Days and Darkness on the Face of the Earth for admirers of the Daniel Lanois-produced Nelson CD Teatro. In an age of overproduction, this is a powerful reminder that simplicity is a virtue.-Bruce Eder.
Sarah Vaughan, The Divine One (Umbrella). Rating: **** 1/2 stars
Vaughan, an idiosyncratic interpreter of jazz and standards, couldn't sing straight, a colleague explains in this one-hour portrait. What he means is she would bend notes and twist lines with her impressive three-octave range. There's plenty of footage of Vaughan working a song, including her signature tune Misty, but also a jigsaw of personas that refuse to fit neatly together. Anecdotes from family, friends and peers illustrate why she was nicknamed Sassy: she'd hang out with the guys all night and could out-cuss Popeye. She was also plagued with insecurities. Perhaps daughter Paris best sums her up when she says her mother was different people with different people. K Lobey.
Eliades Ochoa/Cuarteto Patria.
Rating:
At The
Barbican, London
The
cowboy hat isn't there by chance. Eliades Ochoa specialises in guararcha, a
rustic roots style that is Cuba's equivalent to country music. At the Barbican,
the singer and guitarist wore his trademark Stetson at a rakish angle over a
broad smile. He was accompanied by his band, Cuerteto Patria, with whom he has
been performing for over 25 years. The closeness of that relationship made for a
remarkably tight 90-minute set. At 57, Ochoa is the youngest of the old-timers
who created 1997's Buena Vista Social Club album. His melodic, rough-edged voice
lacks the velvety versatility of fellow Buena Vista vocalist Ibrahim Ferrer, but
is just right for the down-home music that he and his band play: clattering
percussion, yearning trumpets, full-blooded vocal harmonies, swinging guitars
and rolling mid-tempo dance rhythms that soon had people showing off their salsa
moves in the aisles. Ochoa draws from the classic repertoire of Cuban composers;
much of his set at the Barbican was by former Cuerteto Patria member Compay
Segundo. The band appeared to have most fun performing songs from their most
recent album, last year's Estoy Como Nunca. Judging by the shouted requests
between songs, however, many in the audience were here to clap along to their
Buena Vista favourites, which Ochoa was happy to deliver. Unsurprisingly, the
opening chords of Chan Chan earned the biggest cheer of the night. These days
the song is performed far too often - but since it was Ochoa who sang it on the
Social Club album, he can lay more claim to it than most. Ochoa is an
unbelievably relaxed performer: he chatted away in Spanish to the Barbican
audience as though we were in a tropical dancehall. In fact, he was so laid-back
that when he returned for the encore, he forgot to bring his guitar. Amid much
chuckling, a roadie located the missing instrument and the group launched into
the delightful call and response of Arrimate Paca. Eliades Ochoa sings and plays guitar in
Buena
Vista Social Club. In early
2000, he toured with the AfroCuban Ferrín sisters who went professional in '63,
and are a legend in Oriente, eastern Cuba. He is back again in the US this
fall. Manu Dibongo, the famous Camerounian jazz player, recorded a very fine
album with Cuarteto Patria.
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