The 100 Greatest Singers of All Time

Our pals at Rolling Stone are at it again with a list that is sure to provoke much discussion among music fans. This time they've polled a bunch of artists, producers, critics, and other music industry insiders and come up with their list of "The 100 Greatest Singers of All Time".

This list is, of course, skewed towards singers who came to prominence during the rock and roll era (which I guess qualifies as "all-time" now) and it leaves off a lot of really GREAT singers (at first blush I can think of Billie Holiday, Emmylou Harris, Frank Sinatra, Nat "King" Cole, k.d. lang, Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett, Cassandra Wilson, Chrissie Hynde, Seal, and Margo Timmins.)

The Top 10 Singers of All-Time (according to Rolling Stone) are:

1) Aretha Franklin
2) Ray Charles
3) Elvis Presley
4) Sam Cooke
5) John Lennon
6) Marvin Gaye
7) Bob Dylan
8) Otis Redding
9) Stevie Wonder
10) James Brown

Apparently all of the 10 greatest singers of "all time" got their start in the late fifties or the early sixties and only 1 of the 10 best is a woman...imagine that :-)

The rest of the list is here.

Discuss.

Below is the classic "A Change is Gonna Come" written by the wondrous Sam Cooke (#4) and sung by the incomparable Aretha Franklin (#1)

I'm Not There

Bob Dylan is such a distinctive singer and songwriter that it can be problematical trying to cover his songs. Of course, this doesn’t stop people from trying (the songs are too magnetic and powerful for that)…I must have at least a dozen CDs of Dylan covers (with Dylan songs sprinkled liberally amongst many, many other discs) in my personal collection. More than perhaps with any other singer-songwriter, those attempting to cover Dylan need to dig in and find their own way of coming at the songs or else they probably shouldn’t bother.

This collection…the soundtrack to Todd Haynes’ upcoming movie where 5 different actors (including Cate Blanchett) play Dylan…is a slightly mixed bag but there are more than enough highlights to make it a very worthwhile listening experience. The set gets off to a worrisome start with the epic “All Along the Watchtower”…the music (by the Million Dollar Bashers, a group that backs several performers over the course of the 2-disc set) is biting and fierce but Eddie Vedder’s vocal is strangely distant, as if he was afraid to really try to connect to the words. But then things pick up with Sonic Youth’s muscular take on the title track and then My Morning Jacket's Jim James (backed by Calexico, who also back up several artists on the set) takes a fine turn on “Goin’ to Acapulco”. The great Richie Havens inhabits “Tombstone Blues” with vigor.

Stephen Malkmus (backed the Million Dollar Bashers) threatens to get close to getting caught up in doing a parody of Dylan’s idiosyncratic phrasing on “Ballad of a Thin Man” but in the end he manages to avoid that trap for the most part. He also covers “Can’t Leave Her Behind” in a clipped, singsong way that is plaintive enough to suffice. Malkmus also sings “Maggie’s Farm” but his wan vocals are not up to the level of the killer rock-steady backing that the Million Dollar Bashers give him.

The amazing Cat Power kills on a throbbing, horn-driven romp through “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again” while John Doe is equally impressive on the soulful gospel of “Pressing On” (Doe later also sings “I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine” with soulful conviction) and Yo La Tengo offers up a delicate, lilting version of “Fourth Time Around” (they kick it up into higher gear later on a rollicking version of “I Wanna Be Your Lover”.)

Calexico appears several times: backing up Iron & Wine on an atmospheric version of “Dark Eyes”, offering up sweet Latin flavored support (including some sublime horn and string work) to Roger McGuinn’s lovely “One More Cup of Coffee”, providing supple support to Willie Nelson’s potent cover of “Senor (Tales of Yankee Power)” (which features a powerful Spanish verse sung by Salvador Duran), and effectively underscoring Charlotte Gainsbourg’s ethereal, whispery reading of “Just Like a Woman”.

The Million Dollar Bashers (featuring Tom Verlaine on guitars, John Medeski on keyboards, Wilco's Nels Cline on guitar, and Sonic Youth's Steve Shelley on drums) also a couple of other appearances: providing stellar support on Karen O’s feisty cover of “Highway 61 Revisited” and presenting an appropriately dense and spooky version of “Cold Irons Bound (with Verlaine on vocals).

Mason Jennings’s “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” (accompanied only by his acoustic guitar) is well-intentioned but it lacks bite and therefore comes off a pale imitation of the brutally acerbic original (he fares a little bit better later on “The Times They Are A-Changin’”.) Los Lobos’ gently-driving take on “Billy 1”, on the other hand, is a full-bodied gem. Jeff Tweedy, accompanied by drums, bass, and fiddle, takes on Dylan’s phrasing to good effect on “Simple Twist of Fate” while Mark Lanegan is deliciously foreboding on the ominous “Man in the Long Black Coat”.

Mira Billotte is a wonder of vocal economy on her quietly shimmering “As I Went Out One Morning” and Sufjan Stevens turns Dylan’s gospel dirge “Ring Them Bells” into an almost baroque fantasia (complete with a soaring horn section) that works wondrously when you imagine that it shouldn’t at all. Jack Jackson is his soothingly laconic self on “Mama, You’ve Been on my Mind/A Fraction of Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie” which features some of the best acoustic guitar playing on the CD.

Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova (of the Swell Season) play a fine acoustic (guitar, harmonica, banjo, bass) version of “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” while The Hold Steady rock out on a potent take of “Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?” and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott offers up a ragged but heartfelt “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues”. The Black Keys rock a thick, bluesy “Wicked Messenger” while Marcus Carl Franklin (the youngest of the actors playing Dylan in the film) is surprisingly assured on “When the Ship Comes In” and Antony and the Johnsons are subdued (to haunting effect) on “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door”.

Dylan and The Band tie up the CD with “I’m Not There”, recorded during the fabled Basement Tapes sessions.

Dylan afficianad0s may argue the merits of these covers but there is, as I said before, much to be enjoyed on this soundtrack.

Modern Times

It’s been 5 years since our pal Bob put out the wonderful Love and Theft (itself a sequel to the Grammy-winning, and equally engaging, Time Out of Mind) but it was worth the wait. Modern Times is a delightful little jewel of a record that should touch the hearts of Dylan fans young and old (yeah that’s me enthusiastically waving my hand…)

Some of the early praise for this collection has been effusive (Rolling Stone, not surprisingly given its worshipful regard for Dylan over the years, waxed rapturously about it in a 5-star review) and just a bit excessive. Look, me and Bob go way back…his songs are often insightful and sometimes downright magical and his voice (definitely an acquired taste) is a ragged, expressive wonder that I’ve come to appreciate enormously over the decades…but I think it piles too much baggage on Modern Times…a sweet (“Beyond the Horizon” is an unabashed love song so warm that you just know that other people are going to be climbing over each other to cover it), witty (Alicia Keys is name-checked to cheeky effect on the jaunty opener “Thunder on the Mountain”), often fun, occasionally haunting (the loping rewrite of the old blues chestnut “The Levee’s Gonna Break” invokes last year’s Gulf Coast disaster to fine effect…and the closing “Ain’t Talkin’” is filled with palpable menace, mystery, and rueful dark humor), relaxed and unassuming record…to act like it’s the second coming of Blonde on Blonde or some such.

Modern Times is a laidback…but never dull…record that Dylan produced (using the pseudonym of Jack Frost) using only his crack touring band as his support musicians (a grand idea…the players all compliment each other beautifully) and it feels lived-in and familiar (in a very good way) from the very first listen.

Heart of Mine: Love Songs of Bob Dylan

In the mid-Seventies, Maria Muldaur had a fluke top 40 hit with the charming novelty song “Midnight at the Oasis”; as far as I can remember she never hit the top 40 again. But during the ensuing years she has made a good number of wonderful albums...including great discs celebrating the blues, the music of Louisiana, and the immortal Miss Peggy Lee...combining the blues, folk, soul, gospel, and rock & roll into a tasty musical gumbo all her own.

This notion of combining Muldaur’s smoky… sweet, husky, and downright sexy….pipes with Bob Dylan’s poignant, poetic, heartfelt love songs was an inspired one (her record label’s president suggested a collection of Dylan songs after seeing a documentary on the man and Maria came up with the idea of doing Dylan love songs) and it pays off grandly on this delightful little collection.

With the able backing of a crack band, Muldaur puts a bluesy spin on Dylan tunes from different eras…some (a softly-sassy reading of “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight”, a sultry “Lay Lady Lay” [recast here as “Lay Baby Lay”], a soulful twist on the oft-covered “You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go”) perhaps a bit more familiar than others (“Golden Loom”, “To Be Alone with You”)…and makes them smolder, sizzle, lope, swing, and soar with masterful aplomb.

When the celebratory “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere”…with Muldaur playing some tasty fiddle…ends you’re surprised at how quickly 49 minutes have passed. Heart of Mine is a very worthy addition to the expansive body of Bob Dylan covers that have been recorded over the years.

No Direction Home: Bob Dylan

My goodness, 2005 has been a downright loquacious year for our pal Bob. First was the long awaited publication of his very Dylan-like…fascinating, frustrating, sober, wonderfully amusing, boldly informative, willfully oblique…memoir, Chronicles, Volume 1. And now comes this wonderful 200+ minute documentary about the early days of Bob Dylan’s career…and his influence on our popular music and our society.

With No Direction Home…shown on PBS and released before that on DVD…director Martin Scorsese and his fellow producers wove together film clips, interviews past and present, and thrilling performance clips to present Dylan not only as a great songwriter and a compelling performer but as a voice of his generation in the early 60’s (a role Dylan vehemently declined to buy into.)

And at the center is Dylan himself…feisty, irreverent, guarded, and acerbic in his younger days, candid and refreshingly straightforward in more recent interviews…looking back on that time (the film ends with his fabled 1966 motorcycle accident) clear-eyed and unwilling to bear any mantle beyond that of being “a song and dance man”.

This film reveals little about Dylan’s life and loves…that part of him is his and, as ever, he chooses keep it just so…and as much as possible about his music and its impact. It’s hard to imagine now, for example, how Dylan’s forsaking being a “folk singer” (just him, his acoustic guitar, and his harmonica) to plugging in as a rock ‘n’ roller (backed in these early days by most of the members of what would later become The Band.) The tumult may seem a bit silly now but it was a very serious, very polarizing event back when it happened and all of that is covered here wonderfully.

No Direction Home is a wonderful document of a certain time that resonates to this very day for fans of Bob Dylan…fans of popular music…and students of American culture and society during one of the pivotal moments (the 60’s) in our history.

Early 21st Century Blues

When Cowboy Junkies' The Trinity Session came out back in '88, a friend of mine expressed her distaste for Margo Timmins' languid, reserved, and (to my ears anyway) sultry vocals (especially on their semi-hit cover of Lou Reed's "Sweet Jane", one of my friend's favorite tunes.) I didn't understand her criticism then...I think Timmins' supple, evocative voice is one of the underappreciated wonders of the pop world (the same being true for the band as whole)...and, of course, I still don't get it all these years later.

The Junkies' new disc is one of the most sedate (but no less engaging for that) "protest" records you are ever likely to hear. Early 21st Century Blues presents a remarkable collection of songs...two originals by ace guitarist Michael Timmins (the evocative "December Skies" and the wistfully bittersweet "This World Dreams Of"), two traditional folk songs arranged by the band (the oft-covered "Two Soldiers" and the anti-slavery song "No More"), and seven shrewdly chosen covers...that comment on the state of our world in a still new century.

Arguably, no self-respecting "protest" collection would be complete without a Bob Dylan song and this one opens with a lovely version of his acerbic "License to Kill" (originally done by Dylan on his Infidels disc.)

With Michael's acoustic guitar and Margo's luminous voice at the fore, the band resurrects Richie Havens' "Handouts in the Rain" to fine effect. Similarly, they strip down two Bruce Springsteen songs...the aftermath of war song "Brothers Under the Bridge" and the haunting 9/11-inspired "You're Missing"...revealing new levels of nuance in the poignant lyrics in the process.

The only real misfire is the inclusion of tepid rapping (by a friend of the band calling himself "Rebel") during the percolating, otherwise taut and funky (well for the Junkies anyway :-), version of John Lennon's "I Don't Want to Be a Soldier". Leave the hip hop to the professionals.

Shimmering, passionate readings of George Harrison's "Isn't it a Pity" and U2's "One" round out this grand record.

(FYI: As of this writing, Amazon.com doesn't list this CD...I bought mine from the fine folks at Maple Music.)

Chronicles, Volume One

It's in the voice. With Dylan, it's always in the voice. The words are very often poetic, sometimes straightforward and devastatingly incisive, sometimes willfully (maddeningly?) elliptical and obtuse but they are magical when delivered, just so, with the voice. His songs are that way and so, almost as a matter of course, is this engaging, meandering, earnest, silly, utterly and wonderfully Bob-like memoir.

Reading this book is like having a conversation with the man (or at least so I imagine...I'm probably wrong about this but I quite like the notion and so I will stick with it just the same) and the voice comes through...you read it and you hear the unmistakable low rumble...nasal and knowing and acerbic and burnished by too many cigarettes and too many nights on the endless road preaching the gospel of a song-and-dance man to congregations of unabashedly adoring parishioners...in every word. The voice is in your head...you can't shake it even if you want to...and the words make that much more sense because of that.

Ideas and remembrances, old loves and festering resentments, wry asides and clear-eyed self-examinations tumble on top each other...no time for arbitrary chapter breaks or smooth transitions from one subject to the next...in a way that seems, at first blush, to be utterly chaotic and without narrative thread. But, of course, it all makes perfect sense in the aggregate. Like the lives we all lead. Like a Dylan song.

* * * * *

Parenthetical addendum:

The death of Johnny Carson drew me back to this passage: "One night I turned on the TV and saw soul singer Joe Tex on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Joe sang and left. Johnny didn't talk to him--not like he did with the other guests. Johnny just waved to him from his desk. Carson used to like to talk to his guests about golf and things like that, but he had nothing to say to Joe. I didn't think he would have anything to say to me either. All of his guests tried to be funny, put on a happy face, not come unglued, be like Gene Kelly and go singing in the rain even during a big downpour. If I did that I'd get pneumonia. You had to act like everything was wonderful. Like Joe Tex, I'd never been much in the mainstream. I thought about how much more I was like him than like Carson. I shut the TV off."

I would hope that Johnny would have had something to say to Bob.