10 for '08...

…being a semi-random (well it is in alphabetical order…more or less… so it’s not as random as it might otherwise be) list of 10 pop culture people and things that warmed the cockles of Neverending Rainbow’s jaded heart in 2008.

CSI: CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION

The original…and still the best…CSI was firing on all cylinders from the tragic death of Warrick that opened the season to the inexorable feeling of loss as Gil Grissom prepared to take his leave.

GEOFF JOHNS

This super-hero comic book fan’s hero was a writer…a writer who brought amazing, utterly engaging life to some of my favorite four-color adolescent power fantasies :-)

JON STEWART & STEPHEN COLBERT

The Daily Show and The Colbert Report were consistently entertaining and insightful companions throughout the seemingly endless political campaigns that informed life here in the States

NEW MUSIC FROM SOME OF MY FAVORITE FOLKS

Any year that features great new music from music making folks I unabashedly adore…Cassandra Wilson (the sublime Loverly), Emmylou Harris (the beautifully-realized All I Intended to Be), Tracy Chapman (the charming Our Bright Future...see below), and Willie Nelson & Wynton Marsalis (the accomplished and delightful Two Men with the Blues)…is more than all right in my book.

PUSHING DAISIES

I’m not really surprised that this quirky and whimsical show didn’t find a large enough audience to survive…it was, probably, one of those shows that either you liked or you didn’t with very few people in-between…but I am happy that it got a chance to exist at all.

SUPER-HERO MOVIES

A good year for the fanboys with the grim but amazing Dark Knight and the slam-bam wizardry of Iron Man heating up the box office in such a big way. Kudos as well to flawed by still sometimes very interesting offerings such as Hancock, Wanted, and Incredible Hulk (and we shall let things like Punisher War Journal and The Spirit slip into obscurity without comment.)

THE SOUP

The Soup is perhaps the one good reason for the E Network to exist. Joel McHale and his merry pranksters take a biting and often hilarious blowtorch to all of the silliness of pop culture in a fast-paced weekly half-hour.

THE WIRE

Yeah, I’m late to the party but thanks to the good folks at Netflix I’ve gotten completely caught up in the gritty streets of Baltimore as explored on this amazing show (a crime drama worthy of being brought into the conversation alongside classics like Homicide, Hill Street Blues, and The Sopranos.) Santa didn’t hook me up with the complete series box set (admittedly I was THAT good this year :-) but I’ll keep pestering him.

TINA FEY

Tina Fey’s dead-on impersonation of Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin was a godsend to Saturday Night Live…and to all of the rest of us as well. Combine that with the fact that her sitcom 30 Rock has become a consistently funny shows on network TV and we just have to take off our hats to the remarkable Ms. Fey.

YOUNG SOUL SINGERS FROM THE UK

Amy Winehouse spent most of the year in tabloid hell but the baton of great soul music…retro but not in a navel-gazing, nostalgia-worshipping way…from enormously talented young women from the United Kingdom was ably picked up by Duffy (with the stunning Rockferry) and Adele (the powerful and passionate 19) and it was a good thing indeed.

* * * * *

Here's hoping your 2009 is filled with an abundance of love, light, and laughter.

This is Tracy Chapman's simply charming "Sing for You":

A Tribute to Joni Mitchell

Tribute albums are always a slippery slope. If the covers are slavish copies of the original songs there is little point but, that said, if the covers are so different as to be unrecognizable hardcore fans of the artist being feted will likely be put off (and, as a matter of course, some hardcore fans are going to be put off no matter what.) Finding an entertaining and illuminating middle ground…coming at the music with a fresh but respectful vision…is something artists participating in tributes struggle to achieve.

This tribute problem is heightened when the honoree is a singular, distinctive talent like Joni Mitchell. A Tribute to Joni Mitchell…featuring an eclectic and interesting assemblage of pop artists…is all over the place when it comes to trying to surmount the aforementioned slope.

I have, as I have doubtlessly said before in this space, a strange fascination for tribute albums and combining that with my abiding respect and affection for Joni’s work it was a foregone fact that I was going to be all over this one. Add in the fact that some of my favorite artists…Emmylou Harris, Cassandra Wilson, Prince, Elvis Costello, Bjork, Sufjan Stevens…were involved was sweet icing on the cake.

Stevens kicks off the proceeding by turning “Free Man in Paris” into a horn-driven baroque fantasia that gets points just for sheer audacity. The fact that it works…capturing the spirit of Mitchell without aping her version of the song…is a cool bonus. Bjork follows with a spare, aching, vaguely other-worldly take on “Boho Dance” (from Joni’s underappreciated The Hissing of Summer Lawns, which is also the source of “Don’t Interrupt the Sorrow” presented here as a lovely piano instrumental by Brad Mehldau.)

Caetano Veloso offers a percussion-driven of “Dreamland” (originally from Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter) giving it an appealing carnival vibe in the process.

Cassandra Wilson’s husky, sultry, beguiling voice…supported in a superb way by understated guitar, acoustic bass, harmonica, and percussion…smoothly inhabits “For the Roses” and the ever-amazing Emmylou Harris takes a grand, heartfelt tour through the plaintive “The Magdalene Laundries” (from Turbulent Indigo.)

Prince’s abridged version of “A Case of You” has a certain earnest charm (he plays piano, guitar, bass, and organ on the track) while Sarah McLachlan’s voice eerily channels Mitchell’s on her ethereal take on “Blue”.

Annie Lennox’s “Ladies of the Canyon” has underpinnings of sitar, tabla, and santoor giving it a “world music” vibe…but those touches are overwhelmed by the keyboards. Lennox’s voice, of course, stands out over the din.

Recorded back in 1997, Elvis Costello’s version of “Edith and the Kingpin” (again from The Hissing of Summer Lawns)…featuring a horn section (flute, clarinet, trumpet, flugal horn, sax, two French horns) aided and abetted by bass, vibes, and drums…never really catches fire despite a nice vocal.

The disc closes with two covers that deviate only slightly from the originals: k.d. lang’s “Help Me” (lang’s vocal is, of course, lovely) and James Taylor’s “River” (from his Christmas album…it’s fine but not distinctive enough to merit repeated listenings.)

As these things go, A Tribute to Joni Mitchell, has more hits than misses and if it leads fans of the artists involved to go discover the original Joni tracks and albums then it’s all good by me.

In Praise of Cassandra

(This piece was originally presented in my other blog, Bread and Roses, last summer but chances are anybody reading this now wasn't reading B&R then...and it fits in nicely with the theme of this here blog...so I'm re-presenting it here.)

I'm not the kind of guy who falls in love with famous people (my longstanding infatuation with Linda Ronstadt notwithstanding)...I'm just not that guy.

But if I were that guy...if I were...I would be in love with Cassandra Wilson.

I wouldn't be in love with Cassandra because she's beautiful (though indeed she is that) and not even because she's a smart and daring artist (though she is that as well)...no, I would be in love with Cassandra Wilson because everytime she opens her honeyed, soft brown lips to sing, light and magic and wonder fill every fiber of my jaded being.

Jazz? Pop? R&B? Yeah, she embraces and embodies all of that...and, in the same instant, she will not be hamstrung by any of it. My Cassandra (if I were in love with her, she would be "my" Cassandra) would never allow herself to be hemmed in by arbitrary boundaries. Just call what she does music...sweet, sensual, soul-arousing, bittersweet, Heaven-sent magic given form, nuance, rhythm, and melody...and you'll be in the neighborhood you need to be in to find her...to embrace and appreciate her.

Her husky, knowing, amazingly supple and wondrous voice finds wisdom, knowledge, and a world of experience, good and bad and in-between, in the hidden recesses of lyrics...her own and those of a who's who of songcraft (Dylan, Miles, Billie, Joni, U2, Hank Williams, Van Morrison)...and brings them to new, startling, utterly satisfying light for all to see and luxuriate in.

I'm not the kind of guy who falls in love with famous people. I'm not that guy. And so, of course, I'm not in love with Cassandra Wilson.

And I plan to...not...be in love with Cassandra for many, many years to come.

*****

recommended listening:

Blue Light 'til Dawn (1993)
featuring a stately, revelatory version of Van Morrison's "Tupelo Honey" (with a dash of Jimi Hendrix's "Angel" thrown in for good measure) and a stark, haunting take on Robert Johnson's "Hellhound on my Trail" along with the sultry, self-penned title song.

New Moon Daughter (1995)
finding common ground and new nuance between diverse sources such as U2 ("Love is Blindness"), Hank Williams ("I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry"), Neil Young ("Harvest Moon"), Hoagy Carmichael ("Skylark") and even The Monkees (a jaunty, soulful "Last Train to Clarksville") along with originals (the slyly sensual "A Little Warm Death" and the wistful "Solomon Sang").

Traveling Miles (1999)
the spirit of Miles Davis revisited, reinterpreted, and joyfully celebrated with originals, songs once covered by Miles (Cyndi Lauper's "True Colors"), and Miles classics with new lyrics by Cassandra

Belly of the Sun (2002)
more compelling originals interwoven with smart, sometimes unexpected covers (Dylan's sweetly yearning "Shelter from the Storm", Robbie Robertson's "The Weight", James Taylor's "Only a Dream in Rio", and even Jimmy Webb's "Wichita Lineman")

Glamoured (2003)
another engaging, surprising collection features her songwriting collabrations mixed to wonderful effect with tunes like Sting's "Fragile", Dylan's "Lay Lady Lay", Muddy Waters' "Honey Bee", and Willie Nelson's immortal "Crazy"