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Judith Owen “Ebb & Flow” review

Judith Owen  “Ebb & Flow”

May 2014 Twanky Records

 4 Stars

By Carol Anne Szel

A charismatic singer, songwriter, and keyboardist, Judith Owen’s new release “Ebb & Flow” brings us back to a time of the 70s Laurel Canyon era of music in a delightfully musical way.

 With a tip-of-the-hat to LA’s Troubadour sound, Owen actually recruited rhythm section legends Russ Kunkel on drums, Leland Sklar on bass, and guitarist Waddy Wachtel to accompany her on a cd of music that exudes compassion for the human condition in a warm and uplifting way.

 She sings of love, loss, pain, and joy with honesty.  Whether it is in a poignant tune like her original “I Would Give Anything,” or her cover renditions of  Mungo Jerry’s “In The Summertime” and the boisterous “Hey Mister That’s Me On The Jukebox” by James Taylor, Owen brings  her charismatic sound to the forefront.

 Produced in London and LA by Owen and David Z, she sings of love and lust and loss in the human condition.  “Sweet Feet,” for example, has a retro, soulful, sound with a Jackson Browne-like piano feel which brings us into her our hearts with a sweet bouncy, feeling tune of love, life and the human condition of bonding and rolling along.

 It’s a collaboration of musical delights, a feeling of love, lust, life, and longing.  Human feelings we all can relate to…which is what we all need these days.  An album to get for comfort, to cherish, and to blast in your car this summer!

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Wait.

I hate waiting.

Hate is such a harsh word.

Waiting is harsh.

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The Troubador Reunion Tour, MadisonSquareGarden June 2010

The Troubador Reunion Tour, MadisonSquareGarden June 2010

By Carol Anne Szel 

There was something in the way she moved, and she’s around him now, almost all the time.  James Taylor and Carole King celebrated with a sold-out crowd at MadisonSquareGarden Tuesday night, bringing their Troubador Reunion Tour back to their roots in NYC in an intimate café setting of 18,000 hometown friends.

Taylor and King strolled up onto the round center-arena stage hand-in-hand, surrounded by a ring of café tables with people sitting on stools,  a setting that suited this musical team to the soul after their 40 year friendship of both song and life.

Followed onstage by legendary Bass player Leland Sklar, who himself has been with James Taylor and Carole King for the better part of those 40 years, and who has recorded on more than 2,000 artist releases over the span of his brilliant career.

The trio settled in as the crowds roaring welcome hushed and went into the James Taylor song that got him signed by Apple Records in 1969, “Something In The Way She Moves.”  The crowd of seasoned fans were singing along, clearly touched as they played the tunes that moved us through the tapestry of our own lives.

Followed up by “So Far Away” with King on piano, Taylor on guitar, and Sklar on bass, the rest of the band of veteran musicians joined them onstage to round out the ‘family.’  With guitarist Danny “Kootch” Kortchmar on guitar and Russ Kunkel on drums, the show went on featuring hit after hit of these two musical legends including iconic “Fire and Rain,” “Sweet Seasons,” “You’ve Got A Friend,” and “It’s Too Late” and a couple of dozen more hits which included chart toppers and Grammy Award winning songs.

As James Taylor settled onto his stool he led into his world by confessed to the intimately attuned crowd  that when he and Carole King were first bantering around ideas for the set list of the tour,  they originally came up with about six hours of material to play.  As the crowd cheered in joy, Taylor shook his head and said it was like abandoning a baby by leaving some tunes by the wayside in order to take the show on the road, but it had to be done!

A circular photo album of sorts sat above the round rotating stage,  slowly flashing old photos, some childhood shots as the members were introduced, and many pictures which took us down the path of memory lane illuminating the lives in images of Carole King and James Taylor’s rich musical history.

Two of the many highlights that stand out of the show was the poignant moment when James Taylor sat and sang arguably his most famous hit, “Sweet Baby James,” the tune written decades ago for his nephew.   The standing ovation at the close of that tune went on for minutes as he gave the crowd a humble tip of his hat.

A  next peak came when Carole King, mic in hand, who at the age of 68 strutted and danced and pranced around the stage more vigorously than a woman half her age,  to her rip-roaring tune “Natural Woman.”  The crowd was on their feet, dancing and swirling and singing at the top of their lungs as, once again, it felt like a party for 18,000 of your closest friends.

Their voices were as crisp as they were when they recorded them decades ago, the band of brothers were on top of their game, and the night was an evening of musical revelry that, at least for this journalist, will live on in the tapestry of my life.

- See more at: http://www.goldminemag.com/reviews/carole-king-james-taylor-troubadour-reunion-tour-at-madison-square-garden#sthash.4jot78w1.dpuf

(c)Copyright Carol Anne Szel 2014.  All Rights Reserved.

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Duff McKagan talks GNR roots, projects (June 2011)

By Carol Anne Szel

One of the founding members of arguably the most groundbreaking and controversial hard-rock band to emerge from the famous ‘hair-band days’ of the late 1980s, Duff McKagan has since re-emerged on the music scene in a big way. He’s teamed up with fellow Guns N’ Roses band mate Slash in the acclaimed band Velvet Revolver for a few years; his own band, Duff McKagan’s Loaded, released its second record “The Taking” on April 19.With Duff handling vocals on “The Taking,” the band is rounded out by Jeff Rouse on bass, Mike Squires on guitar, and drummer Isaac Carpenter on drums. After more than 100 million career albums sold to date, a Grammy, an American Music Award, and sold-out shows around the world, we catch up with Duff in Seattle, at home with wife Susan and two daughters, where we talk about everything from music to his indie soundtrack flick to, the E! reality TV show “Married To Rock,” that ran last year — and a lot of other highlights in between.

CAS:I love the new CD; great songwriting, good gritty vibe, your voice sounds amazing.

Duff McKagan: Oh, wow, sh*t, thank you! Yeah, we’re kind of hitting a groove.The cover has a real visual impact, lifeless hands bound behind one’s back.

Have you ever felt like your hands were tied musically or personally?

DM: I think the hands really signify being just kind of bound to something that you had heartache and anger. You know the anger on this record with “Your Name” and “Lords of Abaddon” are about the anger stage in a relationship where you’re breaking up. You go through the heartache; you go through the deceit lying to yourself, lying to the other person. The anger, that’s why there’s the fracture.

What was your inspiration for the songs on this release?

DM: Well, what we discovered after we recorded this record. After we recorded it, not during the songwriting.We all experienced as a band a situation where we couldn’t talk about it. There was a guy that was on our tour bus, on our last tour, I’ll just say that … he was on our tour bus because that will leave it ambiguous. And his wife, we’re really good friends with. And they went through a fracture in their marriage and an eventual divorce. But they became better friends afterwards.But the thing is, we watched this heartbreak stage, but we couldn’t say anything to him or to her, we couldn’t be confidants on either side. And it was like Zen Buddhism, you know? We were really just sitting there watching it happen.We didn’t even realize we were going through this thing, and I don’t want to sound corny or anything, but we started writing songs and the first thing that came through was the song “Easier Lying.” And it was like ‘okay, we’re gonna … well that’s a subject we all know.’ And then the next song was “She’s An Anchor.” Then “Indian Summer.” And these were things about this relationship. It’s almost a concept record. But it was really wonderful to see this couple become better friends ever. Because we knew them both and we were like ‘no, you guys are friends, all of this is wrong.’

It’s great that you were able to feel so much, get through this hard time with them.

DM: Yes, and wouldn’t get involved. And it was good for us as a band, because Mike Squires wrote the first lyric for “Easier Lying,” he wrote that lyric. He’s a great writer. So that really informed me and we just went into it. I’m the main vocal writer, but not the only vocal writer by any extent.  You spoke about “The Taking” being a concept record.

Now it’s the Internet – one song at a time. How has that changed for you over the years?

DM: Well, I buy records … I buy records. And I listen to them as such. As a body of work. You know, but I’m no dummy. I have two kids and I live in the modern world now. And my daughters, they don’t ever illegally download music. But they’re on my iTunes account so I see what they download. I think a lot of younger artists, that’s kind of instilled in them; well, you’ll have one hit.

So the album was kind of written on the road?

DM: To put it simply, yes. I mean we came home from tour and we had other things, we put together ideas and kind of finalized things. Then we demoed everything in Isaac’s garage, he’s got a great pro-tools set up there and he’s got a real drum kit. So we can demo stuff really live, you know, put some life into the songs. And Terry Date (producer) wanted to do our record, and I love Terry Date’s story and his history and he records really dry and harsh. And I think the story was really harsh and the record is heavier than the ones before.

How did you decide to go with Terry Date as producer?

DM: He heard a couple of our songs, a couple of our demos … through Isaac. And I’m from Seattle, he’s from Seattle, he and I have so many mutual friends but he and I have never hung out, gone to the same barbeques, nothing. It was the oddest thing. And we’ve been around for a while now. Man, we’d see each other at airports or whatever, and say ‘how come we don’t hang out together, what’s the deal?’ And so finally he heard some of the demos and he contacted my manager and said ‘I’d really love to do this record.’ He gets kind of our deal. He just gets it, he gets it that we’re a band, have a sense of humor, that we’re dark, but it was really a family record. Our band, we’ve been buddies for a long time now. To be honest, it’s the longest band … I kind of just realized this, and it’s the longest time I’ve been in a band – ever.

As opposed to your short-lived and turbulent time with Guns N’ Roses.

DM: I wouldn’t be here talking to you if there wasn’t GN’R. I get my whole history; I understand where my place fits within all of it. I mean I would have been playing music regardless, for sure, all of my life whether I was successful at 21 or not.

On the topic of real life, your reality show “Married to Rock,” you and your wife were the sanest couple on there! Will there be any more reality TV in your future?Susan Holmes McKagan, wife of Duff McKagan, is one of the inaugural cast members of the E! Entertainment reality TV series "Married To Rock." Courtesy E! Entertainment Television.

DM: Well, I’m sort of the reluctant … I come off as the reluctant grump a little bit. But I’m not a grump at all. TV is not my medium, but I love my wife, so I will do whatever makes her happy and that’s okay. She protects me in the thing, like she knows that I don’t really want to be in the thing, so she makes sure I’m in it the least, which is what I want.

How do you balance a normal home life and family in the often-hectic lifestyle in music?

DM: Well, I’ve been through a lot of crap. And I met Susan, frankly, honestly, after I got sober. Not that I haven’t had trials during our marriage, and I’ve had challenges. But we’ve been together now for a long time, and I know she’s got my back. We have fun with it, you know, my family goes on the road, my little daughters have been all over the world. It’s just the glass-half-full syndrome with us. It’s like ‘OK. Check it out, we can go to Europe!’ or if it’s in America, we can go and bring our dogs. We do what we can do and make this work and make it a family vacation. It’s great for the girls and their education, because they’ve seen the world. Many times. So they understand that we live in a world, not just the United States, and all that stuff’s really good, I think. They understand that if I’m spitting onstage, they let me have that space. They know I need to release from another angle, they know that it’s not personal, and all that kind of stuff.

Are you planning a tour now?

DM: We’re playing all the festivals starting June 1 in Albania, you know, then all the European festivals and all that stuff.

I understand you are also releasing a feature film, “The Taking” this summer?

DM: It’s just one of those coffee ideas. A lot of times I’ll have some amazing coffee ideas. Coffee ideas are when we’re all sitting around drinking coffee or we’re on the phone and drinking coffee and we’ll solve all the world’s ills and come up with some of the best ideas that, thank God, by 10 a.m., they’ve gone by. A lot of them are just insane ideas. But this film thing – it was at the same point as we were listening to this record and we realized this thing sounds cinematic: ‘We gotta make a movie!’ People love our sense of humor in our webisodes, so we’ll make a real long webisode and it will be about Issac getting kidnapped and we have to raise money to get him back because we have a gig that night. So it’s kind of a nod to ‘Hard Day’s Night.’ Just a madcap journey through a day of us trying to raise ransom for Isaac, and it’s all to the soundtrack of the record. We’ll see how it comes out, there’s some really, really great vignettes already. It’s mostly done I think.

So you get theatrical with all this?

DM: I guess. It’s not really theatrical. We had some fun and we had a great filmmaker who got our vision and we did the film for beg, borrow, and steal, so here we are.

Who is producing it?

DM: Jamie Chamberlin. He worked on the series ‘Sex & the City’ for five years, and he’s a Seattle guy. He did a little indie movie. Billy Gibbons and Iggy Pop saw whatever it was and got a hold of this guy Jamie. He loves rock music. He did a ZZ Top movie-like DVD and was with the band for two years. We’re managed by the same people as ZZ, and came up with this idea for the movie. Our manager said, you know this guy Jamie Chamberlin lives in Seattle and he might be a guy to talk to. Jamie came down and loved the idea, and he’s been the champion of this thing really.

Well, is there any final thing you’d like to say to your legions of fans out there about “The Taking?”

DM: I don’t have anything final to say, just go get the f**kin’ record! That’s my final thing. 

See more at: http://www.goldminemag.com/article/here-for-the-taking-duff-mckagan-talks-gnr-roots-projects#sthash.HJhZgdde.dpuf

(c)Copyright Carol Anne Szel All Rights Reserved.

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“Looking Into You: A Tribute To Jackson Browne”

“Looking Into You: A Tribute To Jackson Browne” Out April 1

Music Road Records

(****4 stars)

By Carol Anne Szel

It’s not often that an artist gets a tribute album dedicated to them while they are still around, especially by some of the top musicians of our time.

Set to be released April 1, Jackson Browne, with “Looking Into You: A Tribute To Jackson Browne” was honored by such musical luminaries the likes of Don Henley, Bruce Springsteen, Lyle Lovett, Bonnie Raitt, Ben Harper, Indigo Girls, Lucinda Williams, Karla Bonoff, Bruce Hornsby, Joan Osborne JD Souther and more.  A mix of old friends and younger rising artists, and fellow Rock and Roll Hall of Famer’s. The disc, in fact, was conceived by a Jackson fan and head of Music Road Records Kelcy Warren.

They sang 23 of Browne’s tunes, each giving song their touch on it, some keeping very tight to the original, and others really put their own unique musical flavor into the songs, throwing their style into to the mix, making it a little different tasting than the original musical brew.

Being a huge Jackson Browne fan myself, I was very skeptical of this cd when it came in the mail.  How can anyone touch a song of his as a tribute?  But this one hits the mark and more.

Lyle Lovett takes on two tunes on the cd, “Our Lady of the Well” and a rendition of “Rosie” that is the one that will blow your mind.  Other standouts are Ben Harper’s quiet and longing version of “Jamaica Say You Will,” and Bonnie Raitt’s version of “Everywhere I Go” that puts a sort of upbeat island feel to the tune with the help of David Lindley who does a sort of reggae reprise in the middle.

I could go on talking about the tracks forever.  I’ve listened to the pre-release a dozen times in this last week.  If you’re a fan of Jackson Browne, it’s a must-add to your collection.  You will not be disappointed.

Okay, time for me to go throw it into my cd player one more time!

Copyright © 2014 Copyright Carol Anne Szel. All Rights Reserved.

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Monday Morning.

Got myself out of bed, washed, fed Lilo (my kitty) and got dressed.  Put on Kathy Lee &  Hoda and started up my computer. Working from home is a blessing!

Coffee.  Now that's my favorite subject.  Filled up my mug with some home-made Dunkin Donuts java and settled in.

Setting up some PR for  my friend's music, it's fun to have him back in my life...especially when his first single's proceeds are going to charity.  Got two interviews so far in this, my second full week on the "job"... if you can call it that!  Two more ready to go as soon as I can set them up.

Life is good.

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Happy & Blessed Easter Everyone!

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Saturday

It's the Saturday before Easter, beautiful and sunny day up here in New York...

This time of year always  brings back so many memories of growing up, doesn't it for everyone?  Easter eggs and Chocolate Bunnies... family & friends all dressed up in spring outfits, beautiful little frilly dresses, little suits and ties on the boys.  I guess I'm really dating myself with all those references! The kids today for the most part dress in tee shirts and sit in their rooms on the computer playing video games instead of interacting with the family and their friends on Easter. 

But that's what makes my memories even more special...

Those days seem to be gone forever... the time when we'd get in the family car and all go together to Church to celebrate Easter, the real reason for the season.   Great memories to be cherished forever.

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Hard rock and heavy metal from glam to slam

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Goldmine Magazine is the leading resource for the record collector who collects new and vintage vinyl records, music memorabilia, posters and discographies.