Finn achieves what seems a personal voice—not the voice one speaks in but the voice one thinks with, the voice that is changed when one feels, the voice others usually do not hear: a voice of sensitivity and serenity, a voice of imagination and investigation. What “once was fun will later be boring,” he sings, with a cello-like throbbing nearby.
Month: February 2008
Energy, Honesty, Intelligence, Tradition and Possibility: The Clash, London Calling
It was an effect both real and illusionary: expectations were challenged, a new model constituted, but traditions—though modified—continued. London Calling, then two albums of shiny vinyl, nineteen songs of changing moods and distinct musical movements, was their breakthrough recording, produced by Guy Stevens.
Goin’ Home: A Tribute to Fats Domino, featuring B.B. King, Robbie Robertson, Robert Plant, Olu Dara, Corinne Bailey Rae, Norah Jones, and Ben Harper
Harper’s singing is exuberant and pleading nearly at the same time; and the Skatalites, a Jamaican band that often perform reggae and ska, give the song a subtle Caribbean rhythm. Yet, it is Toots and the Maytals in the Domino-Bartholomew seduction song “Let the Four Winds Blow,” produced by Toots Hibbert, that is quite full of soul. With Dean Frasier’s hot saxophone playing and the doo-woppish background singing, and a very clean uptempo production, the song “Four Winds” really lives.