A- Brent Best
Your Dog, Champ
Last Chance Records
Slobberbone frontman Brent Best set about working on his solo debut back in 2010 and now, after years fraught with delay, including the loss of an almost-completed version of the album when his computer's hard drive bit the dust, the record is finally seeing the light of day.
The wait was worth it.
Your Dog, Champ, released on Little Rock label Last Chance Records, is rough-hewn, plain-spoken, Americana folk. Best, whose weathered voice would make Kris Kristofferson proud, skillfully weaves riveting character sketches about working-class dreamers and broken-down losers amid mostly spare arrangements.
Opening with the one-two punch of "Daddy Was a Liar" and "Good Man Now," he tells the story of a family ripped by secrets and unstable patriarchs. "Aunt Ramona" is a touching, acoustic tale of a 1963 road trip; "Queen Bee" is a banjo-tinged, sweet ode to love. "Robert Cole," which has been a favorite of ours since first appearing on the 2007 compilation Just One More: A Musical Tribute to Larry Brown, is fleshed out a bit here with violin and accordion, but remains a devastating and profoundly sad tale of a young life cut short. The dark "Tangled" may be the album's secret heart, with its eerie violin and Southern Gothic imagery.
It may have taken Best longer than he'd hoped to deliver this effort, but we're sure glad he stuck it out. Your Dog, Champ is a special thing.
Hot tracks: "Robert Cole," "Tangled," "Aunt Ramona."
B Lianne La Havas
Blood
Nonesuch
British singer Lianne La Havas made a compelling case that she's an artist of promise and great potential on her 2012 debut, Is Your Love Big Enough? Some compared her to Sade and Alicia Keys. She recently joined Prince on his album Art Official Age.
La Havas' rich, relaxed voice projects a cool sound that is born of a stylistic fusion of folk, jazz and soul ... a voice that is at times a little too reserved.
The album's best songs are its more soulful moments, such as the dreamy and breezy "Unstoppable," co-written by Adele collaborator Paul Epworth, and "What You Don't Do," a rhythmic, soulful romp that recalls Corinne Bailey Rae. La Havas explores her Jamaican and Greek heritage to great effect on the wonderfully percussive "Green and Gold," which takes unexpected and striking melodic turns.
The exquisite "Wonderful," which may be the album's best, is about running into an ex-lover. Her sultry voice, imbued with love's memories, is marvelous. La Havas is revelatory as she reminds her ex: "You can trip, flick a switch negative/Break the circuit between us/But electricity lingers/In our fingers."
"Grow" is a welcome change of pace, as it grows from simple to more complex passages as she moves from a whisper to a scream.
Hot tracks: "Wonderful," "Unstoppable," "What You Don't Do," "Green and Gold."
C+ Original Cast
Two's Company
Masterworks Broadway
"Bette Davis" and "Broadway musical" probably do not sound like they should go together. On the whole, they shouldn't -- even though they did back in 1952 when she starred in Two's Company.
The short, rocky production was a musical revue -- no plot, just songs, dances and comic sketches with music by Vernon Duke and lyrics by Ogden Nash and Sammy Cahn. Reviews were mixed, and though the house was packed night after night, Davis' health problems brought it to a quick end.
Now, the cast recording has been released and it is, to put it mildly, bizarre. Even without the novelty of a singing Bette Davis, it's a strange piece. One doesn't often come across songs about Frank Lloyd Wright ("A Man's Home") and Sadie Thompson ("Roll Along, Sadie") in the same show.
It's the comic songs that land best. The more serious tunes are hampered by syrupy, earnest, yet personality-free singing from the supporting cast.
As for Davis, she's not a singer by a long shot, but she mostly hits her notes and she knows how to finesse and act through the song even when her limited range holds her back.
Her entrance number, "Turn Me Loose on Broadway," shows her at her best, which isn't saying a whole lot.
Fans of Davis and of oddball theater may find it interesting in a time-capsule kind of way.
Hot tracks: "Turn Me Loose on Broadway," "A Man's Home."
B Watkins Family Hour
Watkins Family Hour
Family Hour Records
Fiona Apple seems to be singing with a frog in her throat at one point on Watkins Family Hour, reflecting the informality of the proceedings. The 11 songs, all covers, were recorded live in the studio in an attempt to capture the convivial charm of the variety shows hosted monthly by Sara and Sean Watkins at a Los Angeles club. Like those outings, these performances are uneven but spirited, and full of surprises. Everyone gets a turn at the microphone, and the supporting cast upstages the stars. Tom Petty keyboardist Benmont Tench steals the show by singing the 1960s tune "Prescription for the Blues" as if he wrote it, and Don Heffington is a hoot on the novelty weeper "The King of the 12 Ounce Bottles."
There's plenty of nifty instrumental work, thanks to Tench, the Watkins siblings and ace sideman Greg Leisz. But the energy sags on occasion, while Apple sounds frantically over-the-top on Skeeter Davis' "Where I Ought to Be."
Hot tracks: "Prescription for the Blues," "The King of the 12 Ounce Bottles."
Style on 08/11/2015