20 AcousticGuitar.com Ukulele October 2012

BACK IN 2006, most people who didn’t follow Hawaiian music could identify few, if any, ukulele players by name. And there weren’t many who could imagine the instrument being taken into the artistic strato-sphere. But that changed when a four-and-half-minute clip of Jake Shimabukuro performing the Bea-tles’ “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” surfaced on YouTube.

More than ten million views later, that video can be seen as the point at which the general public’s idea of the ukulele’s possibilities changed permanently. But that rei-magining had started much earlier, when a four-year-old boy in Honolulu, Hawaii, formed a lifelong passion for the four-string instrument. Rather than limiting himself to traditional Hawaiian music, Shimabukuro drew on a wide and unexpected array of influences, from guitarist Eddie Van Halen to non-musicians like Bruce Lee and Michael Jordan. Shimabu-kuro took those disparate influences and started his career in 1997 with the band Pure Heart, which gained a

solid fan base in his home state before breaking up just a few years later. In 2001 Shimabukuro went solo, releasing a steady stream of records on his own Hitchhike label (except for a brief flirtation with a major label for Skyline). He has since recorded with Béla Fleck and the Flecktones; performed with diverse artists like Jimmy Buffett, Levon Helm, and Yo-Yo Ma; and toured the globe.

Shimabukuro’s playing is distinguished by his restless inven-tion—he’ll call on Middle Eastern tonalities and play in 9/8 time and then rip through Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Yet despite his prodi-gious skills, Shimabukuro spends considerable time teaching begin-ners how to play the instrument. He recently gave a ukulele lesson to 300 sixth graders via Skype, and visitors to jakeshimabukuro.com can find tab of basic ukulele chords.

We recently spoke to the 35-year-old Honolulu native about his new album, Grand Ukulele, which was produced by Alan Par-

sons, who worked as an engineer on the Beatles’ Abbey Road and Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon.

You have a new record coming out in early October—how did you end up working with Alan Parsons? He’s known for his work on some absolute monster records by Pink Floyd and the Beatles—were you looking for a bigger “rock” sound?SHIMABUKURO Late last year, Alan attended my show for the first time in Santa Cruz [California] and talked a little about it on the Adam Carolla Show. Later, my dear friend and recording engineer, Milan Bertosa, forwarded the link to me and said, “Check this out! Alan Parsons is talking about you!” I couldn’t be-lieve it! Then, a few months later, I did a show at the Plaza Playhouse Theatre in Carpinteria, just outside of Santa Barbara, California. Mike Dawson, who works with Adam

Carolla and is a close friend of Alan Parsons, invited the Parsons family to the concert, where we met for the first time during my sound check. We then went out to dinner together and hung out for a bit before the show. Of course I could barely eat because I was completely overwhelmed by the fact that I was sitting with the great Alan Parsons and discussing the possibility of working together. I still can’t believe Alan Parsons produced my new record. I’ve been learning so much from him. The way he hears music in the studio just blows me away. Alan has also been bringing major players to the project—guys like Simon Phillips, Randy Tico, and Kip Winger.

You’ve become known for your inventive arrangements of classic pop songs, but you’ve also earned a reputation as a composer in

Jake ShimabukuroThe modern ukulele master on his new recording with Alan Parsons and his role as the instrument’s ambassador.

player spotlight

By Mark Smith

MER

RI C

YR

22 AcousticGuitar.com Ukulele October 2012

your own right. What can listeners expect on this record?SHIMABUKURO As of right now, there are nine originals and five covers including [Sting’s] “Fields of Gold,” [Adele’s] “Rolling in the Deep,” and one of my favorite tra-ditional Hawaiian songs, “Akaka Falls.” There’s a mix of solo uku-lele arrangements, tunes with a driving rhythm section, full orches-tra, and Alan himself makes an appearance on one of the tunes.

Your hybrid fingerpicking style comes from disparate influences—everything from rock to classical to flamenco—and you opt for short fingernails instead of acrylic nails. Are you still approaching finger-picking from that angle?SHIMABUKURO I still keep my natu-ral nails very short so I can feel the strings. I’m still searching, like most people, for that perfect tone. Sometimes you feel like you’re closing in on it, then, like a puff of smoke, it’s gone.

When you visited Acoustic Guitar

in early 2010, you were playing a custom Casey Kamaka ukulele with a slotted headstock and some tasteful inlay on the fingerboard. Have you added any new instru-ments to your collection? SHIMABUKURO I’m currently still playing the same tenor Kamaka ukulele. Casey did say that he’s working on a new one for me, though. He hasn’t filled me in on any details yet, but I absolutely can’t wait to see it. He’s truly a genius. Kamaka has been manu-facturing ukuleles for almost 100 years—I absolutely love their instruments. 

The ukulele continues to draw new players—are there new players on the scene who are grabbing your attention?SHIMABUKURO I’m still excited about Eddie Vedder rocking out the uke. He makes the instrument cool!

Recently you conducted a ukulele lesson for about 300 sixth grad-ers via Skype, and you regularly conduct workshops. How do you

balance your desire to teach the instrument with your touring and recording schedule?SHIMABUKURO There seems to be more and more people out there seeking ukulele lessons. It’s a great tool for anyone who hasn’t played an instrument before, be-cause it’s so easy to get started. I love teaching people how to play, especially kids. It’s hard to keep a balance between touring, record-ing, practicing, and teaching. I love them all. So far, I think I’ve been lucky—things have been working out nicely.

If you could give one bit of advice to a new ukulele player, what would it be?SHIMABUKURO The most important thing is to have fun. Just enjoy every note that you play and every chord that you strum. Break things down when they get too hard. Sometimes it helps to look at one song as a hundred different songs played very close together. View every note as if it were its own song.

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44 Series 77 Series 100 Series 700 Series

What He PlaysUKULELE: 2006 custom Kamaka

Hawaii four-string tenor (made

by Casey Kamaka) with koa top,

back, and sides and a fossilized

mammoth ivory saddle. “It’s very

dense, very hard, and the tone is

warmer,” Shimabukuro says of

the saddle. “I shape my own

saddles. I’m kind of a tone freak.”

AMPLIFICATION: Fishman

undersaddle guitar pickup. Leon

Audio Active DI, which

Shimabukuro describes as being

“very true and pure and doesn’t

overcompensate for the bass.”

Analysis Plus Pro Oval Studio

instrument cable. “I’m trying to

get the purest signal,”

Shimabukuro says. “I never let it

run more than ten feet. I’d go

shorter if I could, but then I

couldn’t move around onstage.”

STRINGS: D’Addario J71 Pro

Arte tenor ukulele (.0290, .0410,

.0327, .0285 gauges).

—DANNY CARNAHAN

player spotlight

30 UkuleleUnlimited.com Ukulele Spring 2013

player spotlight

FOR SOMEONE acknowledged as a master of the ukulele, James Hill doesn’t have a romantic story to tell about the instrument—no bolt from the blue, no moment of sud-den insight. Perhaps that stems from his somewhat unusual intro-duction to the instrument in the schools of Langley, British Columbia. “It wasn’t one of those things where I fell in love off the bat,” Hill says. “I don’t really remember my introduction to the ukulele—it was sort of in the water in Langley. It didn’t seem weird or unusual; it was just another class at school. But gradually this deeper interest started to develop.” That interest grew largely thanks to an innovative educational pro-gram used in some Canadian schools to teach music literacy—a method developed by J. Chalmers Doane in Nova Scotia. (Hill has since co-authored a book with Chalmers Doane on ukulele instruc-tion.) As Hill puts it, the Doane method is “music first, ukulele second,” which could be seen as a reason why his approach to the instrument is devoid of boundaries.

While Hill initially approached the ukulele as an instrumentalist,

over time he gradually began using it as a singer-songwriter, as heard on his latest album, 2012’s Man With a Love Song. (Hill’s previous release was a ukulele-cello col-laboration with Anne Davison, True Love Don’t Weep, in 2009.) In an interview from British Columbia shortly after Thanksgiving, Hill spoke about moving into singer-songwriter territory, as well as adding his own voice to the canon of ukulele instruction, the sonic challenges of playing with cello accompaniment, and why he thinks the latest uke revival might last.

Listening to your albums, you clearly have a wide range of musical influences, everything from Gypsy jazz to ragtime. Is that a direct result of the Chalmers Doane method?HILL That’s got to be part of it. That philosophy was always em-bedded in everything we did—the diversity, the open-mindedness of what the ukulele was capable of doing and what was right for it. There was never a sense of limita-tion around the instrument, to the point where I learned about the limits only when I started venturing

James Hill

The Canadian uke virtuoso puts his skills to a new test—as a singer-songwriter.

By Mark Smith

KEV

IN K

ELLY

outside my hometown and talked to people who had a whole differ-ent perspective on the instrument that I just didn’t grow up with. So what I took for granted as a kid ended up sounding pretty radical to some people by the time I got on the road with the instrument. That was a bit of an adjustment for me. But the other thing in terms of diversity is that I’ve al-ways been a really restless per-son, a restless musician. The ukulele is the perfect instrument for someone with a restless heart, because it travels easily through space. But it also travels through music easily and effortlessly. It slips through borders so fluidly. And I’ve never had the heart to say no to the ukulele. When it feels like going somewhere, we just go there.

On YouTube, there’s a clip of you covering Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean.” How did you go about interpreting that song? HILL I grew up listening to hip-hop and electronic music—I was just like any other kid in terms of my musical taste. That percussive, urban sound was always in my ears—I did some DJing in my teens. When you live with the uku-lele in your hands, there are things you stumble across—I stumbled across some of those percussive elements. They’re just fun, right off the bat, to make those drum sounds. But it was years ago that I stumbled across the fact that you could flick the instrument here and tap it there and get some sounds. The first song that came to mind was “Billie Jean.” I thought, “There’s a tune that has such a

32 UkuleleUnlimited.com Ukulele Spring 2013

player spotlight

well-defined drum part, bass part, and chord part; wouldn’t that be cool?” But I thought to myself, “That will never happen—that’s just a pipe dream.” So I put it out of my mind. It’s funny how the subconscious works—about six or seven years later, I was doing a gig in California and woke up one morning and in a flash knew how I was going to combine those parts. It had been steeping in the back of my mind for years and suddenly it jumped to the fore. In terms of the lyrics, I’ve always enjoyed slowing it down—slowing it down gives it a different meaning.

If you listen to the lyrics, they’re sad and somewhat disturbing.HILL It’s a great song. I don’t like to do a lot of covers—I do sort of subscribe to the idea that the source is the best, well, source. You want to hear someone playing their own song, because they’re the closest to it. But I do think there is such a thing as an insight-ful cover, one that brings some-thing new to the tune, something surprising and different. And in the best of times, I think that’s what that arrangement does.

You made a pretty big change with your last record, going the singer-songwriter route. How did that change the way you play?HILL The ukulele is now in the service of the song—the words

are top dog. All the melodies and chords come from the words—on this latest record and probably the next one. I surprised myself that I was very much a words-first writer. I thought that I might be a melody-first kind of person, due to my instrumental background, but it turned out to be completely oppo-site. I look into the words to find the melody and the natural flow of the line, the natural rhythm of the language, and then amplify that with the ukulele. The ukulele be-comes sort of a magnifying glass for the music that’s already in the lyric. So that’s given the ukulele a completely different role from what it used to be. I’m having a ball with it. I mean, I’ve been playing ukulele for almost 25 years. You have to keep it fresh.

Now that you’re singing and often playing with a cellist, you probably face new challenges with amplifying your ukuleles.HILL Yeah, the fact that her bowed sound is so much louder than the plucked sound [of the ukulele]. There’s this huge volume differ-ence. So when we show up, I’m more nervous about the cello sound—I’m never worried about the ukulele sound.

Have you had to change the way you play now that you’re accompanied by a cello?HILL I have—I’m definitely playing

out a lot more; I’m look-ing for a lot more volume. That was one of the moves away from the koa top. That and playing in more jams where you have banjos and guitars and basses—a little koa body ukulele is just gonna get completely snowed under. So I’ve adapted my style a little bit to be more bold and to get more projection, but I’ve also become more inter-ested in spruce tops and the lutherie to go along with that, to get the uke up to snuff in terms of volume. It wasn’t so much an issue when I was playing for myself, in my dorm room. You see a lot of that on YouTube, for example, the bedroom musician who goes public. [Vol-ume] is not that much of an issue when you’re on your own or when you’re playing in a jam circle like in Hawaii. I think the koa bodies and the way most people play is very intimate, and it can be that way because they don’t need to reach the last row of a theater.

You’ve co-written a ukulele instruction book. Is this your way of giving back, of building on the Chalmers Doane method?HILL Definitely. It gave me so much. I wouldn’t be in this great position of having the best career in the world. And having been a student who came up through the method gives me some perspec-tive on things that might be done differently. I had a lot of ideas about what we could do, and my parents are both retired educators, so I’ve always been around educa-tion and had an interest in it. So I sought Chalmers out and we started rehashing the whole thing. That has taken years—we’ve been at it for about eight years now.

You also conduct ukulele workshops. How has the interest level in the uke changed from when you began?HILL There’s obviously been a boom. You’re definitely seeing more newcomers, but the thing I’m

really heartened by is the general level of playing, which has really gone up over the years. Of course, I’m coming from that background of let’s learn how to read music, let’s play parts, let’s play every possible kind of music we can get our hands on. And I think that open-minded approach is being em-braced by more and more people. To me, that’s where it needs to go. It needs to keep growing, or, worse-case scenario, it drops back into oblivion. The instrument is so novel, and it has this habit of blow-ing up and then sinking under. It has this kind of manic history.

Part of that history could be attributed to players not having access to decent ukuleles, which is really no longer the case.HILL That’s true—this third major wave of popularity has the best chance of sticking around. I don’t think the boom will last forever, and my hope is that it will become an instrument like any other instru-ment, that it will take its place in the canon of instruments. Oh yeah, there’s the mandolin, there’s the fiddle, and there’s the ukulele, and there’s the guitar. That’s not to say that I want the ukulele to lose its sense of humor. You’ll hear “the ukulele just makes me smile.” I always cringe a little when I hear those quotes, because here is an instrument that can play every type of music from Baroque to free jazz—and the best you can say is that “it makes me smile”? There’s just so much more to it. l

WHAT HE PLAYSJames Hill has multiple ukuleles made by Mike DaSilva (see “Uke Dreams,” page 38), all with spruce tops and koa bodies, as well as a Beltona resonator uke (beltona.net). He plays in both linear (low fourth string) and re-entrant tuning (high fourth string). “I don’t even bother getting into that [tuning] debate,” he says. “Why argue? One is better for some stuff, and one is better for the other. So just get over it and get back to the music.”

When playing live, Hill has his high fourth string ukulele set up with MiSi electronics. “[The MiSi] is so easy to use and sounds great,” Hill says. “The low fourth string [ukulele] has the Fishman Blender box in it, because that’s the one I do the body percussion on, so of course you need the microphone for that. It’s a blend of the undersaddle sound with the mic in the body. Both of those systems are just so fail safe. I never use any pedals—I go straight into the house DI. I do travel with an L.R. Baggs Para Acoustic DI, but I rarely use it.”

60 AcousticGuitar.com ACOUSTIC GUITAR February 2013 AcousticGuitar.com 61February 2013 ACOUSTIC GUITAR

EssentialAcousticAlbumsof 2012

  Tallest Man on Earth, There’s No Leaving NowIn Swedish singer-songwriter Kristian

Matsson’s songs, nature—rivers, fields, mountains—serve not just as settings but metaphors for the unsettled and impen-etrable state of the heart. But there’s hope and wistfulness here as well; all of what it means to be human, brilliantly encapsu-lated in meditative songs that owe a heavy debt to American folk. (Dead Oceans)

 Calexico, AlgiersThe word cinematic gets used a lot when describing Calexico’s music. Perhaps it’s the

dramatic nylon-string guitar that often propels the group’s sound, or maybe it’s the interplay of Tex-Mex horns and wistful vocals. One thing’s for sure—Calexico has amassed an impressive discography over the past 15 years that doesn’t include a single dud. Algiers carries on that tradi-tion, with the delicate “Fortune Teller” and the tense “Maybe on a Monday” as linch-pins in a restlessly adventurous collection. (Anti-)

 Shovels and Rope, O’ Be JoyfulThis husband-and-wife duo plays it lo-fi and gritty: acoustic guitars

and some harmonica and kick drum thrown in for spice. No frills, no puttin’ on airs—just songs about murder and all the other dark forces that make country music great. The star of the show is Cary Ann Hearst’s voice, an expressive cross between Loretta Lynn’s West Virginia croon and Wanda Jackson’s rockabilly snarl. (Dualtone)

 Black Prairie, A Tear in the Eye Is a Wound in the HeartFrom the excellent guitar playing of Chris

Funk and Jon Neufeld to violinist Annalisa Tornfelt’s beautiful singing and playing, Black Prairie’s sophomore effort never disappoints. The one-two punch of “Rock of Ages” and “For the Love of John Hartford” shows a band with a deep devo-tion to American roots music and a willing-ness to buck listeners’ expectations. (Sugar Hill)

 Bob Dylan, TempestThe voice is now a strangled croak, but then again, it was never really about

the voice. (Well, maybe in a weird way it was.) Fans of Dylan’s post-motorcycle-crash output are used to his creative ups-and-downs; a solid album or two appearing out of nowhere amidst luke-warm afterthoughts and outright turkeys. Thankfully, Tempest is in the former category. (Columbia)

 Tift Merritt, Travelling AloneFor her sixth album, Merritt assembled a crack backing

band including the incomparable Marc Ribot, whose ethereal tones hover around these well-crafted songs, always supporting the singer-songwriter’s golden voice. (Yep Roc)

 Field Report, Field ReportWhen Chris Porterfield’s previous band with Bon Iver’s

Justin Vernon (DeYarmond Edison) split, he assumed that he was done with music. Turns out he was wrong—and if this gem of a record didn’t completely erase his doubts, then nothing will. (Partisan)

 Old Crow Medicine Show, Carry Me BackHigh-octane and bawdy, Carry Me Back

finds Old Crow Medicine Show in fine form, with founding member Critter Fuqua back in full force. From the rowdy “Missis-sippi Saturday Night” to the lovely “Ain’t It Enough,” this collection is the string band’s most consistent album yet. (ATO)

MARK SMITH, MANAGING EDITOR

KENNY BERKOWITZ, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

  Mairi Morrison and Alasdair Roberts, Urstan You don’t have to be Scottish to appreciate

the beauty of these traditional songs, many sung in Gaelic. Understated acoustic guitar, piano, violin, and percussion frame these lovely interpretations, which range from the playful “Hion Dail-a Horo Hì” to the elegiac “Leanabh an Òir.” (Drag City)

 Justin Townes Earle, Nothing’s Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me NowHeavy on the R&B horns

and sorrow, Justin Townes Earle’s fourth full-length album finds him musing on his failings, casting himself as the lovelorn and confused star of the show. While it’s not as immediately accessible as Harlem River Blues or Midnight at the Movies—the horns carry more of the melody than his vocals—Nothing’s Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me Now continues a solid run by the young songwriter. (Bloodshot)

 Andrew York, Yamour

Merely calling Andrew York a

guitarist doesn’t do justice to the

depth of his creative output.

Although he’s long been recog-

nized for his compositions, Yamour establishes him

as one of the leading composers for solo guitar. That

York is a virtuosic player (demonstrated here by his

stunning version of Bach’s “Prelude in C Minor”) is

icing on the cake. (Majian)

 Brooke Miller, Familiar

Brooke Miller’s voice is both

angelic and powerful, and her

guitar playing—mostly in alter-

nate tunings—provides effective

and engaging accompaniment. On the sparsely

produced Familiar, the focus stays on her voice and

guitar for a solid album of folk/pop originals.

(Stockfisch)

 Eric Skye,

A Different Kind of Blue

Covering an album as iconic as

Miles Davis’s 1959 masterpiece

Kind of Blue is an ambitious prop-

osition, on any instrument. Eric Skye demonstrates a

thorough understanding of the album’s five tunes,

and in distilling the material into solo guitar

arrangements using his Santa Cruz 00 flattop, he

gives these familiar pieces a refreshing character

that will appeal to jazz fans as well as guitar aficio-

nados. (Half-Diminished)

 Adam Miller, Delayed

Imagine fusing the styles of

Tommy Emmanuel, Charlie

Hunter, and Tuck Andress for a set

of tunes played on solo flattop

steel-string guitar, and you have Adam Miller’s

Delayed. The Australian’s record is chock full of

original tunes that groove hard and employ impres-

sive polyphonic techniques without being gimmicky.

(adammiller.com)

 Don Ross, Upright and

Locked Position

Upright and Locked Position

continues the groove-heavy sound

that has influenced a generation

of fingerstylists. While Don Ross’s trademark groove,

disarming precision, and gorgeous tone are in full

effect, the album is also full of great melodies,

including “Stop Driving, Start Playing” and “Silver-

smith.” (Candyrat)

 Kevin Kastning

and Sándor Szabó,

The Book of Crossings

Kevin Kastning and Sándor

Szabó form one of the most

adventurous guitar duos on the scene. Playing

extended-range instruments that include 14-string

contraguitars, 16-string guitars, 12-string and clas-

sical baritones, and more, the duo’s unclassifiable

repertoire borrows from modern classical, experi-

mental jazz, new age, and Eastern European folk

traditions. The duo’s joyous interplay creates

sounds that frequently fall far outside the guitar’s

usual sonic spectrum. (Greydisc)

 Pacific Guitar Ensemble,

Begin

An eight-piece group that

includes classical virtuosos Jon

Mendle, David Tanenbaum, and

Marc Teicholz and steel-string fingerstylist Peppino

D’Agostino, the Pacific Guitar Ensemble creates an

orchestral sound on a repertoire that includes

Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 6 and composi-

tions by Sérgio Assad and D’Agostino. Oud,

baroque guitar, and bass augment the ensemble’s

standard guitars, resulting in an appealing cross-

over vibe. (GSP)

 Chris Proctor,

Close and Personal Friends

A collection of nine medleys of

cover tunes, Chris Proctor’s Close

and Personal Friends features solo

fingerstyle guitar arrangements of tunes as diverse

as “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” “Good Day

Sunshine,” “Sweet Home Alabama,” the Scottish “A

Scarce O’Tattis/Lyndhurst Jig,” and Dave Evans’s

classic fingerstyle piece “Sad Pig Dance.” Proctor

plays with authority using mostly straight-ahead

fingerstyle techniques and occasional effects such

as tapping and an eBow. (Sugarhouse)

 Claus Boesser-Ferrari,

Solo Acoustic Guitar Live

Experimenting with extensive

percussive techniques, effects,

and a great deal of improvisation

on this live recording, Claus Boesser-Ferrari creates

a soundscape unlike that of most solo guitarists.

Covers of the Doors’ “Light My Fire” and

Mongo Santamaría’s “Afro Blue” highlight a great

collection of otherwise mostly original material.

(Acoustic Music)

 Al Petteway,

It’s Only the Blues

Originally recorded as examples

for his students, Al Petteway’s

It’s Only the Blues stands on its

own as a great fingerstyle blues album. Recorded

mostly in D A D G A D tuning, the songs often

merge the blues and Celtic music, a tricky feat.

(Fairewood)

TEJA GERKEN, SENIOR EDITOR

  Eric Bibb, Deeper in the WellGoing to Loui-

siana brought

out the best in Eric Bibb: the uplift

in his songwriting, the resonance

of his voice, and the versatile

elegance of his approach to banjo

and guitars. Recorded at Dirk

Powell’s Cypress House Studio,

Deeper in the Well perfectly

captures the warmth of every

instrument, and there’s plenty of

Cajun/Creole flavor provided by

Powell on banjo, fiddle, mandolin,

accordion, and bass; Cedric Watson

on fiddle; and Christine Balfa on

triangle. (Stony Plain)

  Carolina Chocolate Drops, Leaving EdenThe Carolina

Chocolate Drops

went through a lot of changes

since Genuine Negro Jig and have

emerged stronger than ever. On

Leaving Eden, they reach further

into the tradition, bringing back

tunes from the Georgia Sea Islands

(“Read ’em John”) and mining

Civil War minstrelsy (“Camptown

Hornpipe”) and the old-time reper-

toire (“Run Mountain”). Multi-

instrumentalist Hubby Jenkins

provides the depth that’s been

missing from the band, freeing

Dom Flemons and Rhiannon

Giddens to turn in their most

adventuresome performances

to date. (Nonesuch)

  Justin Townes Earle, Nothing’s Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me Now

Newly sober, Justin Townes Earle

emerged from years of hard living

with the leap he’d been trying to

make all along. Nothing’s Gonna

Change the Way You Feel About Me

Now is a dark, shadowy, unsparing

album that builds on his love of

soul music to directly face his

demons, and though the album has

its upbeat moments, the great

majority of these songs are about

loss, written by a grown-up Earle

who’s worn, weary, and ultimately

wiser. (Bloodshot)

  Foggy Mountain Special: A Bluegrass Tribute to Earl ScruggsFeaturing a

dozen of the world’s best bluegrass

banjoists and a handful of the

genre’s hottest flatpickers, these 12

instrumentals are never less than

stunning. Guitarists Clay Hess and

Cody Kilby demonstrate just how

far flatpicking can go while hewing

to the tradition; Wyatt Rice’s

playing on “Steel Guitar Rag” is

harmonically rich and rhythmically

complex; and dobroist Randy

Kohrs unleashes one incredible

solo after another, a fitting homage

to the bluegrass banjo pioneer.

(Rounder)

  Glen Hansard, Rhythm and ReposeRhythm and

Repose doesn’t

have a rock band, and it doesn’t

need one. It’s got Glen Hansard

front and center, leading a tiny trio

of downtown players who help him

slow the beat and explore the full

range of his tattered baritone. Held

together by the lightest touch of

piano and guitar, the production

keeps the focus exactly where it

should be, stripping these melodies

to their essential beauty, delivered

with a knowing, wounded inti-

macy. (Anti-)

Berkowitz, cont’d on page 62

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