Various Artists, No Depression: What It Sounds Like (Vol. 1) (Dualtone, 2004)
Various Artists, Just Because I'm a Woman: Songs of Dolly Parton (Sugar Hill, 2003)
Compilation and tribute CDs are a dime a dozen these days, but if they're done right, they can make good listening. Here's a good example of a compilation and a slightly above-average example of the tribute, both in the country vein.
No Depression magazine is the bi-monthly bible of alternative country music, whatever that is. This disc does a good job of, if not defining alt-country, at least giving some good examples of what it is.
It wisely is bookended with two defining tracks. In the first, Johnny Cash sings "The Time of the Preacher," the opening cut from Willie Nelson's definitive concept album Red Haired Stranger. Here, Johnny is backed by the cream of the crop of mid-90s alt-rock musicians, including members of Nirvana, Sonic Youth, Alice in Chains and Soundgarden, who gathered in a Seattle studio to pay tribute to Willie on a disc titled Twisted Willie. The closing track of No Depression is the one from which the magazine takes its name, the Carter Family's "No Depression in Heaven." Well, actually, the magazine took its name from the Uncle Tupelo cover of that song, which arguably spurred the renewed interest in an authentic, rootsy type of music that today is loosely grouped under the alt-country banner. The magazine's co-editor wrote in a recent column that its audience generally consists of two different types of fans: those who like authentic traditional country music that they can't hear on country radio, and those who like authentic traditional rock 'n' roll that they can't hear on rock or pop radio. That's why these two tracks, one a rockified outlaw-country track by that great iconoclast of traditional American music Johnny Cash, the other an old-time acoustic song, an apocalyptic vision of the Great Depression by the God-fearing Appalachian Carters (into whose family Cash later married), so aptly begin and end this collection.
In between these two anchors there swirls true alt-country music in all its glorious variety. On the more country side, Allison Moorer, who is too country for contemporary country radio, sings a harrowing ballad about her mother (who was murdered by Moorer's father), "Is Heaven Good Enough for You." Robbie Fulks and Kelly Willis update the tradition of male-female duets with the perky and clever honky-tonker, "Parallel Bars." The artist known as Hayseed duets with Emmylou Harris on the countryfied hymn "Farther Along," their voices perfect foils for each other.
From the rock side of the tracks we have Alejandro Escovedo's "Five Hearts Breaking," Buddy Miller's "Does My Ring Burn Your Finger," Kevin Gordon and Lucinda Williams anthemic "Down to the Well," and Doug Sahm's psychedelic Texas-swing "Cowboy Peyton Place." And somewhere in between come Whiskeytown's "Faithless Street," with Caitlin Cary providing warm fiddle and lovely harmony vocals to Ryan Adams' alt-folkie moan; Neko Case's tribute to her hometown, Tacoma, Washington, "Thrice All American"; Aussie twangstress Kasey Chambers' take on Matthew Ryan's simmering "Dam"; and "How I Love Them Old Songs," a live cut featuring a raft of alt-country stalwarts in a tribute to Mickey Newbury.
One tangential note: listening to the Carters sing "No Depression in Heaven," one is struck by their pronunciation of certain words. In the chorus, they sing "I'm going whurr thar's no depression," and at one point lead singer Sarah sings the word "tribbalation." It's the kind of authentic regional dialect that has been largely wiped out in the U.S. by mass media, a trend that ironically was greatly furthered by the popularity of the Carter Family's radio broadcasts from the 1930s to the '50s.
Tribute albums can fall into a couple of different traps: the artists either too closely ape the originals or they push them so far outside the envelope that they're unrecognizable. Ideally, the performer paying tribute strikes a balance between the two extremes, which is generally the case on this salute to country icon Dolly Parton. As is nearly universally the case with such encomiums, some tracks work better than others.
The highlights of this collection are Norah Jones' cool, piano-driven cover of the title track from Parton's 1999 bluegrass breakout, The Grass is Blue; and Joan Osborne's classy take on one of Dolly's folkier songs, "Do I Ever Cross Your Mind." Jones' particular brand of understated balladry is perfectly suited to this bluesy song, and Osborne's warm vocals are deftly anchored in a simple, rootsy arrangement.
Alison Krauss, who could sing the Nashville phone book and make it interesting, kicks things off with a slow, bluegrassy take on one of Dolly's better-known ditties, the movie-title anthem "9 to 5." Kasey Chambers' piercing and powerful pipes are perfect for the rocking, darkly ominous reading of "Little Sparrow." A real surprise here is Sinead O'Connor's starkly emotional rendition of "Dagger Through the Heart." And the yin-yang sister act of Shelby Lynne and Allison Moorer bring their own sensibilities to two songs: Shelby's a funky, swinging take on "The Seeker," which is robbed of some of its power by her breathy delivery; and Allison's "Light of a Clear Blue Morning," which is flush with studio trickery, including faux-vinyl-y scratches and pops and a dreamy electronica wash that threatens to overwhelm her delicate vocals and the quietly plucked guitar.
Emmylou Harris is a longtime friend and collaborator of Dolly, so it's only natural to include her on this disc, but it's disappointing to get a re-run, even though it's a classic: Emmy's late-70s cover of "To Daddy" from her album Quarter Moon in a Ten-Cent Town.
That leaves only four tracks that don't really make the grade, quite a good ratio for tribute records. Newcomer Mindy Smith renders Dolly's powerful and desperate plea to the "other" woman, "Jolene," into a schoolgirl playground spat; this kid's got a good set of pipes, but not the maturity yet to tackle this material. Melissa Etheridge doesn't attack "I Will Always Love You" with Whitney Houston's misdirected energy, but she still over-emotes in her own way; Me'Shell N'Degeocello's interp of "Two Doors Down" is original and valid, but its looped percussion and her hip-hop influenced delivery stick out here like a hippie at a formal reception. But the worst offense is the inclusion of pop-country diva Shania Twain and her egregious butchery of Dolly's signature, "Coat of Many Colors." Alison Krauss's band, Union Station, lays down a gorgeous setting, over which Twain slops her affected vocal stylings. It's a true sow's-ear/silk purse situation, her too-obvious emotional rasps and voice-catches drawing all attention away from the song and onto the singer. Krauss and even Dolly herself do their best to ground this thing in some sense of authenticity with their harmony vocals, but it's a losing battle.
To top it all off and show us what all the fuss is about, Dolly herself sings the last song, the title track, "Just Because I'm a Woman." Now that's more like it.
