...to the Sublime

Yes, It Did Go 'Round in Circles

I was rummaging around iTunes and stumbled upon "Billy Preston's Beatles Salute," a 3-song EP that includes "Sgt. Pepper," "I'm Looking Through You," and--the best of the bunch--George Harrison's "Give Me Love." Preston, of course, made invaluable contributions to the Beatles' final recordings. (Maybe it's an apocryphal story, but John Lennon supposedly once suggested that Preston be named "the fifth Beatle," to which Paul McCartney supposedly replied that it was bad enough with four.)

Missing from iTunes are the two albums that Preston recorded for Apple. Perhaps they're tied up in the same quagmire that has kept the Beatles' catalog from the store. I'm not sure the CDs were ever released in the U.S., but I found a used import copy of Preston's first Apple record (above) at Amoeba. Most of the songs were written by Preston (including the great title track), a few co-written with Apple label mate Doris Troy. (Yes, the singer who performed "Just One Look.") And there's a nice cover of Bob Dylan's "She Belongs to Me."

And among the three bonus tracks is "As I Get Older," a funky instrumental that Preston co-wrote with Sylvester Stewart--yep, Sly Stone! And get this: that track was produced by Ray Charles!! Preston once performed with Charles's band (that's Preston playing organ on "Let's Go Get Stoned"), and during shows Brother Ray reportedly would introduce Billy thus: "Anytime I leave this business I want him to take over what I started."

Unfortunately, Preston only lived a couple years longer than Brother Ray. He died in June, 2006, at the age of 59.

Download 14 As I Get Older

    

Remembering Brother Ray

Want a reminder of how fast time is passing by? Well, it's already been five years since Brother Ray passed away, in June of 2004. September 23 would have been his 79th birthday. 

I started listening to Ray when I was about 10. My older brother, Rudy, had brought home the two-disc album, "Ray Charles: A Man and His Soul." He played it so much that, to this day, I can remember the song sequencing of all four sides. It may have been the first anthology of his greatest hits, and one of my favorites was "Ruby." When I started a new school for 6th grade I made a new best friend. Like me, Mike Taylor had older brothers whose musical tastes had shaped his, and he too liked "Ruby." That was his girlfriend's name. So there we were, virile 6th graders, strolling to our social club hangout--the neighborhood Dairy Queen--and crooning: They say, Ruby you're like a song, you just don't know right from wrong...

Many years later, sometime in the early 1990s, I finally had the opportunity to see Ray perform. I was thrilled, of course, but unprepared for what would transpire. When he sat down at the piano and began singing, tears spontaneously streamed from my eyes. The power of his soulful voice was simply overwhelming.

Download 06 Ruby

 

   

Willie Nelson Has a Cold

Forgive the pretentiousness of borrowing the title of Gay Talese's famous 1966 essay about a recalcitrant Frank Sinatra, but that's the thought that occurred to me as I listened to Willie Nelson's listless new CD. It pains me to say that about an album I was excited to hear by one of my favorite artists. But I fear that Willie's incessant touring and recording, plus his 76 years of hard livin'--including his incessant use of ganja--may have all finally caught up with him.

The concept for Willie's debut on Blue Note records was blue chip: ace producer Tommy LiPuma assembled a crack band with jazz stalwarts including pianist Joe Sample and bassist Christian McBride. The songs would be jazzy arrangements from the Great American Songbook, which Willie had previously mined on the fantastic "Stardust" and "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" albums. But those were recorded three decades ago, and Willie has put on a lot of miles since then.

The song selection lived up to the album's title, with the classics including "The Nearness of You," "Fly Me to the Moon," "Come Rain or Come Shine," "Ain't Misbehavin'," "Baby It's Cold Outside," and "Since I Fell For You" among the 12 tracks. But there's a numbing sameness of tempo to the proceedings, and Willie sounds tired--almost disinterested. Even a couple of prominent guest vocalists don't help: on "If I Had You," Diana Krall has her usual Nyquil effect; and the May-September pairing with Norah Jones on "Baby It's Cold Outside" had me frantically dialing my iPod to find Ray Charles and Betty Carter's playful, sexy version.

As a musician ages, it's probably easier for an instrumentalist to adjust to the passing of time, but it's harder for a vocalist to hide behind a microphone. What's most jarring here is that WIllie sounds different--lacking his usual soul--so suddenly. By the time the album concludes with a song he made an American classic, "Always On My Mind," you wonder why he would try and improve upon his definitive version from 1982.

Maybe Willie had a really bad cold. 

Download 11 Since I Fell For You