Black Sabbath feature, Boston Globe, Aug. 8, 2013

With Ozzy back, Black Sabbath rages on

By Scott McLennan

 Globe Correspondent     August 08, 2013

Iommi, Osbourne, Butler--We three kings

 

The question posed on the first track of the new Black Sabbath album “13” — “Is it the end of the beginning or the beginning of the end?” — seems far less existential after speaking with the band’s guitarist Tony Iommi.

“I’m with the people who I started with. And now we’re finishing it where it started,” Iommi says. “It feels comfortable.”

Iommi, reached by phone earlier this month during a tour stop in Palm Beach, Fla., says “it’s a shame” that drummer Bill Ward isn’t part of this reunion of the original Black Sabbath lineup, but that being together with singer Ozzy Osbourne and bassist Geezer Butler has surpassed expectations, both his and everyone else’s, as the band is awash in commercial success and critical acclaim.

Iommi didn’t put any finality to Black Sabbath, but all of the principals are in their mid-60s and the guitarist has been battling cancer throughout this reunion.

Black Sabbath formed in 1968, and Iommi is the only member to be part of every lineup, as the original quartet crumbled with Osbourne’s departure in 1979. In the ensuing years, Butler and Ward would also flit in and out of Black Sabbath as Iommi soldiered on, sometimes triumphantly as he did with singer Ronnie James Dio, sometimes erratically with a revolving cast of singers ranging from Tony Martin to Ian Gillan.

“There have been great lineups that I enjoyed. The albums I made with Dio, I really enjoyed that,” Iommi says. “But this is great to be back with Ozzy.”

And fans agree, making “13” Black Sabbath’s first chart-topping record in the US. The band released “13” in June and will be featuring tracks from this first full-fledged outing with Osbourne in 35 years alongside such classic cuts as “War Pigs,” “Iron Man,” and “Paranoid” when Black Sabbath performs Monday at the Comcast Center in Mansfield.

Black Sabbath fired Osbourne in 1979 after the band’s tour behind the “Never Say Die!” record released the previous year. The original lineup regrouped for a couple of one-offs before a full reunion tour in 1997. Though the original lineup mounted additional reunion jaunts, it could not pull together new material, save for two studio tracks tacked onto the “Reunion” concert album. By 2002, Osbourne was off and running with his hit reality TV show. In 2006, Iommi and Butler resumed work with Dio, Osbourne’s original replacement in Black Sabbath, and that partnership flourished until the singer’s death in 2010.

Iommi, Osbourne, and Butler — along with drummer Tommy Clufetos filling in for Ward, who could not come to business terms with his band mates — raised the Black Sabbath banner last year for a few shows which preceded an announcement that the band was working on a new album with producer Rick Rubin.

Iommi credits Rubin for having Black Sabbath return to the sound of its early groundbreaking albums, records that are considered the cornerstones of heavy metal yet infused with jazz and blues influences.

“Rick asked us to wipe out the last 40 years,” Iommi says. “He said approach this like it was the second Black Sabbath album. It was difficult at first.”

Not only did Rubin guide the band back to its roots, the producer also convinced Black Sabbath to use Rage Against the Machine drummer Brad Wilk for the sessions (though Clufetos from Osbourne’s solo band is back in the fold for the tour).

“We tried various drummers, but they were not right for what we wanted,” Iommi says. “[Wilk] was nervous when we first met him. He had never played with us, and Rage Against the Machine is quite different. But after playing with us for a few days, he fit right in.”

Connecting with younger metal heads and heavy-music fans does not seem to be a problem for Black Sabbath. At a recent Heavy Metal Thursday, the weekly multi-band showcase held at Ralph’s Diner in Worcester, musicians and mavens there alike bowed down at the Sabbath altar.

“They started all the dark imagery and doom tunes. You had Led Zeppelin and Blue Cheer maybe playing a similar style back then, but they didn’t take in the whole imagery and dark, evil lyrics,” says Faces of Bayon guitarist Matt Smith.

Wren Leader, a booster of the Mass. metal scene, credits Iommi in particular for being the architect of that recognizable sound.

“It’s simple, but it’s not simple,” says Leader, singing Iommi’s chugging riff from 1971’s “Into the Void.” “You hear that all over the place.”

For a band that has written so much about impending doom, Black Sabbath certainly knows how to gracefully capture what is important to its members. Iommi was diagnosed with lymphoma in 2012, and says that making the new Black Sabbath album took on a sense of urgency. The sessions also proved to be therapeutic.

“It pushed me to be creative and took my mind off of what I was going through,” Iommi says. “It helped to have the band there, just laughing and joking.”

All through the recording and touring, Black Sabbath has worked around Iommi's ongoing treatment.
Iommi says that he expected the new album to do well commercially, figuring there would be a curiosity factor for what a new Sabbath album with Ozzy would sound like. But he did not expect it to be a top seller around the world.

“Getting a successful album was a great boost and a bonus,” Iommi says. “We just made a record that felt right for us.”
 

Scott McLennan can be reached at smclennan1010@gmail.com.

Slim Cessna's Auto Club feature, Providence Journal, Aug. 4, 2013

Music: Slim Cessna’s Auto Club to perform at The Met Café in Pawtucket 

Slim Cessna's Auto Club (Gary Isaacs photo)

By Scott McLennan

Special to the Journal

 A recent conversation with singer and band leader Slim Cessna brought to mind a line from Bob Dylan’s “Joey.”

“Always on the outside of whatever side there was.”

Slim Cessna’s Auto Club has been playing a fiery brand of rocking country music for 21 years, but hasn’t capitalized on various roots-rock trends the way that bands as different as Wilco and the Avett Brothers have been able to.

“Every two years something else comes along that’s popular and sort of what we do. It started with alternative country and now you’re seeing how banjo is popular,” Cessna says. “We have a banjo.”
But nobody will confuse Slim Cessna’s Auto Club with Mumford and Sons when the former plays Wednesday at Met Café in Pawtucket. The show will also feature the Sterling Sisters, a Gothic country band that includes Cessna’s son George, and Providence’s the ’mericans.

But the perennial outsiders in SCAC know the ins-and-outs of country, gospel, folk, and primal rock ’n’ roll. And those influences and styles get balled up in songs that never lack imagination.

During a spell in the early 2000s, Cessna lived in Providence and conjured the album “The Bloudy Tenent Truth & Peace,” a fictional history of Rhode Island (though one with an obvious nod to Roger Williams).

“How much of history do you think is true?” Cessna asks. “I mean, we know the characters are real, but what happened is tougher to know. It’s a lot more fun to have creative license.”

While in Rhode Island, Cessna was also part of the Blackstone Valley Sinners, and says he stays in touch with his Ocean State music connections such as Joe Fletcher even though Cessna is back in his native Colorado.

“Unentitled” is the last batch of original material from Slim Cessna’s Auto Club, and is full of moral parables and modern folklore (and for the totally uninitiated, the band will have copies of its primer “SCAC 102” made for a European tour available at its upcoming East Coast shows).

Cessna says growing up around church music taught him that gospel is as moving as rock ’n’ roll.
“Even if you’re not a believer, the music is powerful,” he says of the church traditions he learned as he was also listening to rock as a kid.

But Cessna says his first musical goal was to make a country band with his buddies.

“We were not good at it, and it turned into its own thing,” he says. “There are no rules.”

The first song on “Unentitled,” “Three Bloodhounds Two Shepherds One Fila Brasileiro,” upends bluegrass traditions for a sprawling bit of folkloric fable-building. A sinister rock ’n’ roll vibe courses through “Last Black Scarf.” And Cessna sounds like he is singing “Hallelujah Anyway” from the pulpit.

Cessna brings the fervor, and since 1999, Munly J Munly has been bringing the tunes to SCAC.
“He’s an amazing storyteller and into the folk tradition. He can write a great murder ballad and is familiar with so many American traditions,” Cessna says. “He wasn’t joining the band to be the songwriter, but got tossed into it. He’s just better at it than I am.”

The solid songs, multifaceted arrangements that include upright bass, pedal steel guitar, keys, drums and aforementioned banjo, plus the impassioned delivery of Cessna and Munly on vocals combine for word-of-mouth buzz that has helped SCAC build a following even though it can’t shake that outsider status.

“We just play all the time,” Cessna says. “I think we are for whoever likes experimental music. And they find us.”

Scott McLennan can be reached at smclennan1010@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @ScottMcLennan1.

Tedeschi Trucks Band/Black Crowes concert review, Boston Globe, Aug. 1, 2013

Double dose of rock with Tedeschi Trucks, Black Crowes

By Scott McLennan

Globe Staff   August 01, 2013

Several facets of good ol’ guitar boogie were on display when the Tedeschi Trucks Band and the Black Crowes brought their joint tour to the Bank of America Pavilion on Tuesday.

After a bit of greasy blues rock from the London Souls, the 11-piece Tedeschi Trucks ensemble played an explosive set that featured several songs from the forthcoming “Made Up Mind” album.

Together now for three years, the TTB is playing and writing at its highest level to date. The energy of the live performances has found its way into structure of the new songs, so there was far less searching for the right blend of tight precision and unleashed passion. Instead, the band intuitively coursed through the material with a polished finesse.

Guitarist Derek Trucks is the band’s anchor, carving indelible solos into every song. But the rest of the group is just as vital to the TTB’s overall vibe. Susan Tedeschi’s vocal work perfectly complements her husband’s guitar prowess, and the two exquisitely move the band through funky and soulful turns.

Opening with “Made Up Mind,” the TTB showed how much more propulsive its new songs are, a message reiterated with the closing whirlwind “The Storm.” Yet the band’s ability to move with a lighter touch was still intact on the new “It’s So Heavy.”

The TTB’s namesake leaders each took a spotlight turn, Trucks delivering a jazz-bent “Nobody’s Free” that featured tandem play with saxophonist Kebbi Williams, and Tedeschi plying a bouncy R&B tone with the new “Part of Me.”

The Black Crowes followed with a set that reached deeply into the band’s catalog as well as showcased some of its best-known songs. Singer Chris Robinson was the cheery pied piper tying together the glimmering psychedelia of “Peace Anyway” and “She Gave Good Sunflower” with the muscular boogie of “Remedy” and “Hard to Handle,” which now sandwiches an additional cover of “Hush”.

Guitarists Rich Robinson and Jackie Greene and keyboard player Adam MacDougall each had loads of solo time, especially on a sprawling “Wiser Time.” But the Crowes also pulled together solid ensemble work on an acoustic version of “She Talks to Angels” and a luminous “Girl From a Pawnshop.”

The Crowes and the TTB may have different styles, but they share a common ground, which they explored during the encore when the two bands (and London Souls guitarist Tash Neal) joined forces on rock ’n’ soul blowouts “Let’s Go Get Stoned” and “Turn on Your Love Light.”
 

Scott McLennan can be reached at smclennan1010@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @ScottMcLennan1.

Yes preview, Providence Journal, July 28, 2013

Legendary progressive-rock band Yes plays Twin River 

The reconstituted Yes, from left, Steve Howe, Geoff Downes, Jon Davison, Alan White, and Chris Squire. 

 

By Scott McLennan

Special to the Journal

The prog-rock luminaries of Yes are partially re-creating, partially re-imaging their 1970s heyday on a tour that has the band performing entire groundbreaking albums from the era.

Before it was the owner of a lonely heart, Yes conceived grand, thematic albums, and will be presenting two of them — “Close to the Edge” and “The Yes Album” — Friday at Twin River in Lincoln (other stops on the tour also get “Going for the One,” but casino venues have time restrictions on concerts).

Bassist Chris Squire, the only member of Yes to be in every lineup of the band since its 1968 inception, says that while the group is playing faithful renditions of the studio recordings, the outcomes are inevitably influenced by the musicians now in the band.

In 1971, Tony Kaye played the keyboard parts on “The Yes Album,” and Rick Wakeman handled the task on 1972’s “Close to the Edge.” Current keyboard player Geoff Downes has a history with Yes, joining in 1980 for the “Drama” record, and later reconnecting with the band in 2011.

“He’s going to cover the parts of Tony Kaye and Rick Wakeman but play with his own flavors,” Squire says of Downes.

Drummer Alan White likewise did not join Yes until right after “Close to the Edge” was recorded, but has been with the band since.

But the most significant change in Yes comes in the vocals department. Founding member Jon

Anderson was the recognizable voice of Yes from its beginning until 2004. Last year, Jon Davison became the second singer to take on Anderson’s role.

“The real good news is that Jon Davison is doing a fantastic job,” Squire says. “Our audience really likes him.”

While “whole album” concerts have become popular over the past few years, Yes had not done such a show before, playing every song in the order it appears on a given full-length.

“We try to honor the originals as much as possible. Some of these songs got stretched out live. We consciously went about restructuring songs to their original format. We took some of the jamming out of it,” Squire says.

The trade-off is hearing guitarist Steve Howe perform all of “The Yes Album,” his first outing with the band, one in which it made a seismic shift toward the orchestrated and classical motifs that would shape the band’s music for the remainder of the decade.

With “Close to the Edge,” Yes arguably hit its perfect balance of long-form exploring and melodic grandeur.

Squire says that it is common now for him to see a new generation of Yes fans showing up at his concerts. “Kids of the original fans are getting into the music,” he says. “That’s good for me.”

The overall health of the Yes-dom will be on display Saturday in Camden, N.J., for the first Yestival, a day of music by likeminded bands such as Volto!, which feature’s Tool’s Danny Carey, and Carl Palmer’s ELP Legacy playing alongside Yes.

“It’s something we wanted to do for years, and if it all goes well, in 2014 we’ll tour with a festival,” Squire says.

There’s also the possibility that the Squire-Howe-White-Downes-Davison lineup will make a new Yes album.

“One of the good things about having had people come in and out of the band is that whenever a new member comes in he has his own ideas, and that will give a slightly different slant to what Yes actually does,” Squire says, using the example of guitarist Trevor Rabin’s entrance in 1983, which triggered a hard turn into a sleeker sound that produced the band’s only #1 hit in the United States, “Owner of a Lonely Heart.”

“Whatever we make will be made organically,” Squire says. “You can’t force new music.”

Scott McLennan can be reached at smclennan1010@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @ScottMcLennan1.
Yes

Friday, 8 p.m.

Twin River Casino Event Center, 100 Twin River Rd., Lincoln

$45-$125, www.ticketmaster.com. (877) 827-4837

 

 

Summer Arts Weekend review, Boston Globe, July 28, 2013

Music review

Summer Arts show revels in diversity, dancing

By Scott McLennan

Globe Correspondent   July 28, 2013

Angelique Kidjo performing at Copley Square (Boston Globe photo)

 
The second annual Summer Arts Weekend turned Copley Square into a world dance party Saturday night, with pipers, drummers, horn players, and the sumptuous voice of headliner Angelique Kidjo transcending genre and ethnic boundaries.

Ukulele player Jake Shimabukuro, Galician piper Carlos Nunez, Italian blues guitarist Noe Socha, the world-music mash-up troupe Red Baraat, Boston’s own Session Americana, and Benin’s Kidjo supplied more than eight hours of rhythm-rich music that at times had the audience lined hand-in-hand dancing around the park. Then there were times when the music held that same crowd in rapt attention, as when Berklee-trained Socha dug into Django Reinhardt’s “Nuages” or Barrence Whitfield tapped the emotional resonance of Merle Haggard’s “Irma Jackson” with Session Americana.

The plaza at Copley Square was packed by the time Shima-bukuro wrapped up his set with George Harrison’s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” a tune that transferred quite nicely to uke.
Nunez and his band followed with one mesmerizing tune after the other, bending the bagpipe tradition to summon Middle Eastern and Latin American influences alongside the Celtic core of his work.

 

Boston violinist Katie McNally and a cadre of local pipers joined Nunez for a few numbers. McNally touched on the significance of the festival’s broad sense of community happening so close to where the city suffered tragedy just months ago at the Boston Marathon.

 

Socha was not scheduled to play Saturday, but caused such a buzz with his set on the preceding night that organizers brought him back. And once again he sparked the crowd with a mixed bag of soul, blues, and jazz, all played with a flowing ease and intense passion.

Brooklyn’s Red Baraat stormed the stage with a sound that fused hip-hop, jazz, and Indian folk music for something that was greater than the sum of its parts and simply impossible not to move to.

The Session Americana set turned into a celebration of the diversity in Boston’s music scene. The Session ensemble first played its own “Raking Through the Ashes,” giving the festival a taste of the tight-knit musicianship the group has for years displayed at the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge. Then the ensemble welcomed Ryan Montbleau, Nicole Nelson, Zoe Christiansen, Zach Sherwin, and Whitfield, who each played a couple of songs with the group.

Montbleau, Nelson, and Whitfield sang songs that spanned New Orleans soul, pop, and country. Sherwin performed comic raps, and clarinet player Christiansen led the band through klezmer numbers, further expanding the band’s brand of “Americana.”

Kidjo closed the show with a fiery set that started with a few contemplative ballads that showcased the depth of her band then launched into a dance party.

Kidjo invited Shimabukuro on stage for a sweet rendition of “Over the Rainbow.” Kidjo also covered Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song,” but was at her most infectious grooving to her own tunes, and at one point had audience members on stage grooving right along with her.

Summer Arts Weekend continued Sunday with the Boston Landmarks Orchestra, Alison Krauss, and others.
 

Scott McLennan can be reached at smclennan1010@gmail.com. 

 

Robert Plant concert review, Boston Globe, July 26, 2013

Robert Plant gives old songs new life

By Scott McLennan 

Globe Correspondent  

July 26, 2013

We’ve heard from the Stones and a Beatle already this summer, and on Thursday, Robert Plant continued the invasion of vintage Brits.

Yet playing with his latest ensemble, the Sensational Shape Shifters, Plant hardly seemed tethered to the past, even as his show at the Bank of America Pavilion was heavy on material from his days in Led Zeppelin. And when Plant went back to Zep, he went way back, focusing on songs from that band’s first four albums.

Yet with the Shape Shifters, Plant found fresh ways into the classics, such as having “Whole Lotta Love” erupt from a swampy blues, or whipping “Four Sticks” into a world beat frenzy with the aid of Gambian Shape Shifter Juldeh Camara, who played a variety of African instruments during the set.

Plant also reached back in his catalog of solo albums. A sleek “In the Mood,” for example, followed the thunder of “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You” that opened the concert.

Plant was strong in voice through the 90-minute set and remains an easygoing, yet captivating front man.

He made a few jokes at the expense of Journey and the Rolling Stones, and told a few tales, particularly when introducing classic blues numbers such as “Spoonful” and “Fixin’ to Die.”

But for the most part he simply fell into the music, which he guided through acoustic ballads — “Going to California” being the gem — and techno-flourished tunes, such as the sinister-sounding “Tin Pan Valley.”

The band stretched out on songs such as “The Enchanter” and “Another Tribe,” bringing to life deeper tracks from Plant’s catalog.

But the show peaked with a clutch of Zep tunes toward the end. There, Plant captured and connected the cosmic swirl that links his past to his present.

The rearranged “Whole Lotta Love” and a finale of “Rock and Roll” likewise satisfied the crowd but let Plant remain an inventive artist.

Phosphorescent opened the show with a nice set of sprawling, cinematic tunes.
 

Scott McLennan can be reached at smclennan1010@gmail.com

 

A bevy of Boston by Beat posts

Peter Malick, left, and Butch Norton

 

 

 

 

Recently in the Boston by Beat blog, I checked in on Brookline-bred guitarist Peter Maclick's new adventures with the Luxury Wafers record label he started in L.A. with his wife, the reunion of Boston funk band Chucklehead, and some great new work being done by the band Fixed Bayonets. There's also a new video from rising star Kingsley Flood. You can check out all of those posts by clicking here.