Los Lonely Boys
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The essence of Forgiven, the gripping third album by Texas trio Los Lonely Boys? "Familia! That's what I think it represents. Three brothers. True American spirit - or Texican spirit."
It's as simple as that, says guitarist Henry Garza of the artistic and emotional breakthrough achieved by him and his siblings, bass player Jojo and drummer Ringo Jr. From the bluesy groove of the opening song "Heart Won't Tell a Lie" through the yearning plea of the title song, the heartfelt faith of "Love Don't Care About Me" and a rollicking version of the Steve Winwood/Spencer Davis Group chestnut "I'm a Man."
Los Lonely Boys has fully realized the potential shown as its first two studio albums, the multi-platinum 2003 debut Los Lonely Boys and 2006's Sacred (a No. 2 arrival on the Billboard albums chart), made the Texas trio one of the most beloved and acclaimed new arrivals in rock. Each of the three reaches new levels in their playing and singing, Henry and Jojo alternating lead duties and all three joining in both the group musical dynamics and vocal harmonies that can only come with genetic bonds. And there are some new turns as well, including Ringo's recording debut as a lead singer on the song "Superman." Powered by passion and true brotherly love, Forgiven is in every note a rock 'n' roll classic.
But getting it in the grooves is not a simple matter at all. And that's where producer Steve Jordan (John Mayer's Continuum, Herbie Hancock, the music for the upcoming movie Cadillac Records) came in. The plan: Forget the conventional recording studio. Book a soundstage, have the band play. A quick three weeks of sessions, and that's it! Jordan assembled an ace team of sound artists, headed by renowned engineer Niko Bolas (producer of various Neil Young albums, engineer for Melissa Etheridge, James Taylor, Billy Joel and many others). Together they designed a series of set-ups specifically built to get the most out of the Boys.
"When I saw the room and the whole set-up I was really excited," Jojo says. " It was kind of like scientists, a whole new experiment. The vibes we got playing the songs were so much more live, able to be more in tune with each other rather than focusing on other things. It came down to having a good time and being able to play without playing, kind of like the theory of Bruce Lee and martial arts - playing without playing, thinking without thinking, knowing without knowing, being fluid like water." Certainly it's no surprise to anyone who embraced the band's initial, global hit "Heaven," which hit No. 1 on the Billboard adult contemporary chart and earned a Grammy Award for best pop performance with vocal, or who has seen the group tear up concert stages around the world.
Forgiven is what Los Lonely Boys has been building toward, the fulfillment of the belief and support of not just millions of fans, but such notable mentors as Willie Nelson, Carlos Santana (joining him on tour, as well as writing and playing with him on "I Don't Want to Lose Your Love" on his 2005 album All That Am) and Los Lobos (with whom they'll team for the 2008 edition of the Boys' Brotherhood Tour). And it builds on the expanding breadth and range shown on such spotlights as their searing version of "Whatever Gets You Through the Night" for the 2006 John Lennon tribute album Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur. "They're for real - the Brothers Garza are for real," Jordan exclaims. "When they play they only play what they really believe in. Nothing's ever contrived. And they have the support system to help them get where they're going. They love making music, really love to do it, and are only getting better." For Jordan, the course of action was clear.
"Obviously from 'Heaven' we knew what great songwriters they are and what kind of sound the group has," says Jordan, who in addition to his status as an in-demand producer is an elite drummer (Stevie Wonder, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and too many others to mention). "They sing wonderfully together, three brothers with this chemistry. I went to see them live at the Fillmore last year and it was a great show. They play all-out live. So I thought the best way to capture them, where I would be satisfied and to instill some fun in the process was to capture that live energy and the groove of them playing." And Jordan stepped right in with the same passion.
"He had ways to keep the flow going, capture the mood," Jojo says. "He'd be there with us, standing there and jamming with this percussion thing he made, like a microphone shaker thing. And he'd play football with us and everything! When we got together with him he was one of the guys. His last name when he was with us wasn't Jordan. He was Steve Garza!" It wouldn't have mattered who he was, though, if Los Lonely Boys couldn't deliver. And in this batch of songs they've established their own distinctive voices as writers and performers, while staying connected to the solid grounding of their musical roots. Though reluctant to single out any one song as the keystone, the brothers all say it's no accident which one provided the collection's title.
"They were all so magical, but for me the one that is the foundation is the name of the album, 'Forgiven,' " says Henry. "When we played that song, for me in my heart and I hope my brothers too, I got that vibe that we knew what this was all about again, what we're all about. It's an actual prayer that's turned into a song, purposefully made that way. For me it was just that whole experience. Felt like a cleansing." Typically, the Garzas each speak of their achievements in terms of the others' contributions.
"Whenever my brothers would come and show me melodies they were coming up with, they were amazing," says Ringo. "We've been playing a long time, but they still amaze me with things that are in their souls and hearts and minds. There's one song, 'Love Don't Care About Me,' that Jojo wrote. That song is something else! I can literally see my brother's heart, where he's coming from. It makes me cry. It's crazy about how they can create a song and it's what I feel, when I pray or am talking to myself." Of "Staying With Me," the album's first single, Henry says, "I went to Jojo's house and he showed me this song. I got goose bumps. My brother had created something right from the soul." For Henry and Jojo, the proudest moment on the album may be "Superman," Ringo's lead singing debut. "Ringo's gonna be heard now!" Henry says.
"It's a song I wanted to write for my wife," Ringo explains. "And Henry suggested the Superman theme, and I took if from there. I never sang lead vocals before. I enjoy singing with my brothers. They would always ask me if I wanted to sing lead, but I just wasn't ready. Third album, I guess."Another very brotherly instance came with the roaring version of "I'm a Man" - this time with "brother" Steve Jordan fully in the fold. "That was one of those moments - it was just 'Holy crap, man!' " says Henry. "We were jamming on something we had been working on and all of a sudden I started singing 'I'm a Man.' I was just joking around. And Steve was there freaking out." Explains Jordan, "It was one song I always thought they could do that was really cool. But I was going to take my time approaching them with it - they're songwriters, and you don't want to go in pitching a tune when they haven't finished their own yet. But one day we're setting up, and Henry started playing if and I said, 'I can't believe you're playing this tune!' Henry said, 'My dad used to play this for us.' So it was incredible."
That the song came to them via their father ties everything together for Los Lonely Boys. While they cite a wide range of influences, from Buddy Guy and Texas icon Stevie Ray Vaughan to mentors Santana and Nelson to the Beatles (listen to "Make It Better" for a taste of how they blend the Fab Four into Texas blues), the biggest influence on them will always be Enrique "Ringo" Garza Sr., who had his own group, the Falcones, with his brothers playing the Texas conjunto circuit in the '70s and '80s. His sons' first public performances, in fact, came singing backup with their father as children. "Our father is our big inspiration, of course," says Ringo. "We had a picture of him taped up through the whole recording process. I just kept staring at it, thinking what kind of sounds he'd hear. I do all this to impress my father and my brothers."
Los Lonely Boys formed when the Garzas were in their teens, moving briefly from their home in San Angelo, Texas, to Nashville. After returning to their home state, the trio recorded its first album at Willie Nelson's Pedernales Studio, the redhead making a guest appearance (as well as on the follow-up album, on which Ringo Sr. also guested with a featured vocal). But with all the heights they've reached, they've never taken for granted what they view as blessings from above manifest in both their talents and the affection for them from millions of fans.
"We want to let everybody know that we've worked the hardest, really trying to please each other and the fans," says Ringo. "We thank the good Lord that we're able to. Out of all the success we've had, it's still amazing to hear fans sing the words to the songs we've written with our hearts. We write them and think probably nobody will like this. But we play them and people sing them back to us! Amazing! It's pretty crazy and we appreciate it so much. If I could give a hug to every crowd member, it wouldn't be enough." He pauses to consider the journey." We came from a town with nothing. Came from nothing but love - and brotherhood. Familia. That's what drove us."
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Alejandro Escovedo & The Sensitive Boys
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Alejandro Escovedo - Street Songs of Love
There are songwriters who sing their songs, and then there are songs who sing their writers.
Alejandro Escovedo is one with his muse and his music. Over a lifetime spent traversing the bridge between words and melody, he has ranged over an emotional depth that embraces all forms of genre and presentation, a resolute voice that weathers the emotional terrain of our lives, its celebrations and despairs, landmines and blindsides and upheavals and beckoning distractions, in search for ultimate release and the healing truth of honesty. Sometimes it takes the form of barely contained rage, the rock of punk amid kneeled feedback; sometimes it caresses and soothes, a whispery harmony riding the air of a nightclub room, removed from amplification, within the audience.
It’s ironic that the kickoff track to Alejandro Escovedo’s new album, “Street Songs of Love,” is entitled “Anchor,” because it lifts off with the same buoyant, guitar-fueled energy that fueled the best tracks on this album’s predecessor, 2008’s “Real Animal.” Indeed, this album is a nearly seamless segue from that earlier and justifiably acclaimed effort – same producer (Tony Visconti, who has twiddled the knobs for the likes of U2 and David Bowie), same hard-charging band (mostly) and recorded in the same out-of-the-way Kentucky studio.
But whereas “Real Animal” was a semi-autobiographical tour of Escovedo’s musical incarnations, “Street Songs of Love” is an intimate look at that most malleable of emotions; love found, lost, fought for, regained and, sometimes, sought after in vain. “I feel like I am falling/And it feels okay,” Escovedo sings in the vintage-sounding, doomed-romantic ballad “Fall Apart With You,” and many of the tracks on the album survey a series of emotional peaks and valleys. “Undesired” (with it’s wonderful opening lines, “Fought in Paris/Fought in Rome/Beneath the lights of the Astrodome/Now, baby, didn’t we now?”) is a tale of two losers lucky enough to find each other.
“Silver Cloud,” whose shredded guitar contrasts with its erotic imagery (“Silver cloud with a black lace lining…”) finds the singer confessing “I’m a fool for your love” (“C’mon fool me!” he shouts.) The swaggering Lou Reed-styled “Street Songs,” with its pumping bass and finger-snapping cool vibe, is a hipster survey of romantic possibilities while “Faith” (with Bruce Springsteen lending vocals) is a nearly inarticulate howl of affirmation.
But the heart of the album may be “Down In the Bowery,” a song Escovedo (along with co-writer Chuck Prophet) penned for his son Paris, whom he describes in a press release as “17, angry, young and pissed off, very quiet, loves punk rock, noise, and graffiti…” An essay on perhaps the most enduring love of all, that between a parent and child, the song is impossibly tender, a collection of hopes, dreams and prayers that will resonate with any parent who sees in his child all that he himself might have been. Escovedo has a canon of great songs, but this one may rise to near the very top. Musically, Escovedo, Visconti and Alejandro’s great band, the Sensitive Boys, keep things straightforward on “Street Songs of Love.” Perhaps that arises from having road-tested the songs during a two-month residency at the Continental Club before the band entered the studio. At any rate, there are none of the string arrangements that Escovedo is so fond of (though complex and layered background vocals, courtesy of Karla Manzur and Nakia Reynoso replicate similar effects). Mostly he’s playing that guitar like ringing a bell, as they say, while his three bandmates track along in close formation.
From the slinky, snake-handling riff of “Tula” to the ringing, anthemic chords of “Undesired” to mournful, blues-tinged lament of the album-closing instrumental “Fort Worth Blue,” guitars play in counterpoint to Escovedo’s lyrical essays on love’s permutations. The net result is two halves of one heart, beating in tandem. On Street Songs of Love, that heart is beating strong.
Thus became Street Songs of Love.
In Alejandro's words:
"ANCHOR": was the first song I wrote for this record. I had hoped to make a record that wasn't autobiographical, but because of what was happening to me in my life personally, it became about love, and how love can be all the different colorings and changes in life: tragic love, romantic love, light love, pissed off love and angry love. I was trying to find some hope in the image of an anchor, which is not only something that weighs you down, but also prevents you from floating away.
"SILVER CLOUD": I just made that one up in rehearsal and it came out, the ever-sensual attraction of a "silver cloud with a black lace lining." All the great blues guys who like to boast about their manliness, in that one I just went for it: "I'm a hungry man…."
"THIS BED IS GETTING CROWDED": Is about all the ghosts you encounter along the way of a relationship.
"STREET SONGS": It started as trying to describe what was going around on that block where the Continental Club is, and then when I was traveling I met someone and that person became part of the song. It's a little movie.
"DOWN IN THE BOWERY": Chuck and I wrote it together, and as soon as we wrote it, we knew it was about Paris, my son, and we started to refine it with him in mind. He's seventeen, angry, young and pissed off, very quiet, loves punk rock, noise, and graffiti. It's me trying to pass the torch on, encouraging him to be his own guy.
"TENDER HEART": is Chuck and I again. We get into this thing where we start talking about songs, and in "Tender Heart" we were digging the form more than the content. We just started riffing on words – "I got a dream, do you want to be in my dream?" – and it just took off from there. I thought of it as a Raymond Carver short story in a rock song.
"AFTER THE METEOR SHOWERS": How beautiful someone is. How you can just be taken in, overwhelmed by that beauty, taken to a place where meteor showers happen, stars, and wind, and all the elements. I've had several songs that you don't know exactly what they're about, but you write them, and they take on meaning after you meet someone, or go through something. That happened with that song.
"TULA": is about Larry Brown, the writer from Oxford, Mississippi, who became a very good friend of mine. I even toured with him, playing guitar as he read. He's a great writer, really Southern, a guy who didn't start putting his thoughts on paper until late in life. He'd gone to Vietnam, come back to Oxford, became a firefighter, and then decided he wanted to write. He won the Faulkner Award, and I loved him. A long lost brother and he passed away a few years ago, so this is my salute to him.
"UNDESIRED": is a song about two people who are lucky to have found each other because nobody else wants them.
"FALL APART WITH YOU": In a way, this kind of fits with "Undesired," and reminds me of the Jack Lemmon, Lee Remick characters in Days of Wine and Roses. It's kind of tragic.
"SHELLING RAIN": is a Kim Christoff poem I put to music. I loved the imagery, and it reminded me of a sixties song, something from Spooky Tooth, or early Procol Harum.
"FAITH": is a simple expression of what you gotta have, especially if you want to keep on keepin' on.
"FORT WORTH BLUE": That's the one I wrote for Stephen Bruton. He was from Fort Worth, and it's a very peculiar town. Dallas is the big banking center, but Fort Worth is where the stockyards are. It's kind of a wild west place, and the music that comes out of there is full of crazy cats – Delbert McClinton, T Bone Burnett, the Legendary Stardust Cowboy. There's a way of playing in Ft. Worth that's really different, a weird guitar style where they're a complete rhythm section just on six strings. Stephen had this beautiful way of playing like that, and he meant so much to me. He was so important in my life. I think of him all the time.
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Carrie Rodriguez
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Five years ago, singer, songwriter and violinist Carrie Rodriguez had a simple goal: ''To get a gig playing fiddle with somebody great, be on the road and make a living.'' But ever since she was spotted at Cheapo Discs in her hometown of Austin, Texas, backing outsider country act Hayseed at an in-store gig during the 2001 South By Southwest music convention, Rodriguez has far exceeded her all-too-modest expectations. Through her unique collaboration with veteran songwriter Chip Taylor, which began after that in-store and has yielded three critically acclaimed albums of duets, Rodriguez has enthralled record buyers and concert audiences throughout North America and Europe. She's become an evocative vocalist and compelling composer now ready to take center stage on her own.
Seven Angels on a Bicycle, her solo debut, puts an urbane, seductive spin on alternative country and bluegrass, with artfully minimalist production that features melancholy echoes of pedal steel, finger-plucked fiddle strings, brushed snare, a whisper of saxophone and plenty of wide open space for Rodriguez's remarkable voice to fill. Rodriguez boasts an affecting twang and brings a wonderfully lived-in quality to her vocal performances. There's an intimacy, honesty and sexual frankness within them that makes Rodriguez's every breath worth hanging on to. Her listeners immediately become her confidantes. All the while she and co-producer Taylor push musical boundaries, stripping country-style tunes to their emotional and melodic essence. There's an Austin-style warmth on these tracks, counter-balanced with New York City sophistication.
Rodriguez's choice of studio cohorts illustrates her forward-thinking approach: avant-jazz guitarist Bill Frisell and his own frequent band-mates, drummer Kenny Wollesen and bassist Viktor Krauss (brother of Allison); pedal and lap steel player Greg Leisz, who's worked with everyone from k.d. lang to Beck; jazz saxophonist (and Rodriguez's husband) Javier Vercher; and Taylor on acoustic guitar. Rodriquez and Taylor had previously worked with Frisell, whom Taylor and Rodriguez had sought out after catching one of his impressively eclectic gigs, on Red Dog Tracks, their highly regarded 2004 duo release. They had also joined Frisell's trio, along with Leisz, in October 2005 at the Ruhr Triennale Arts Festival in Germany. So the Seven Angels sessions were something of a reunion for this crew.
The group met at Avatar in Manhattan, which, Carrie notes, ''is full of history and good vibes, on top of being a state of the art studio. All the jazz greats have made albums there and still continue to do so.'' As these musicians did on Red Dog Tracks, they didn't lay down their tracks separately but performed together as a unit. The album has a focused, meticulously produced feel, even though it's a live-in-the-studio creation.
''We were all really improvising,'' Carrie explains. ''We had one rehearsal the night before the session started and I tried not to talk too much about any of it, just played through the songs to make sure there weren't going to be any train wrecks. The guys have such amazing ears. As soon as one starts to do something, another picks up on it and might add a harmony. When they play, they do the sort of things a producer would do if he or she were layering tracks --let's double that guitar part over there or fill in that spot - but they just do it naturally.''
The title track sets the prevailing mood: somewhat dreamy, a little bit foreboding, immediately entrancing, as Rodriguez describes a man cycling across the Brooklyn Bridge and disappearing into the traffic maelstrom of Manhattan. It seems at first that the song is about desire, longing at first sight, but, Rodriguez reveals, it's actually a tribute to a close friend and fellow musician, the best man at her and Javier's wedding, who was fatally struck by a truck last year while riding his bike on the city streets. The song is wistful, not mournful, a subtle celebration of her friend's ''carpe diem'' sensibility. It's filled with lyrical memories of times they spent together in Rodriguez's adopted home of New York City : ''Taking pictures on the subway/Enchiladas on a Sunday/Let's get drunk, we'll all play your fancy guitars...''.
Rodriguez co-wrote half of the tunes with Taylor, including the shuffling fiddle workout, ''Never Gonna Be Your Bride,'' on which Rodriguez is clearly having a good time, both with the teasing lyrics and fast-paced arrangement. Taylor himself contributed made-to-order numbers like the knowingly provocative ''50's French Movie,'' the noir-ish ''Dirty Leather'' and the languid, sensual ''Big Kiss.'' As co-producer, says Carrie, Taylor ''laid out a red carpet for me, so I could just get out there and sing. Chip is all about feel and emotion in a recording situation. Sometimes things start to get a little too perfect or tight in the studio, and he is the first one to bring a song back to a more honest place. He uses the term 'sweaty' a lot when trying to find the right groove for a song. It helps!''
Rodriguez grew up around the arts, living in Austin with her painter mother, but regularly spending time with her dad, folk-based singer-songwriter David Rodriguez, with whom she still occasionally performs. She took to classical music at a very young age, inspired to pick up the violin after seeing Itzak Perlman in concert. By the time she was college age, Rodriguez seemed to be on the fast track to a classical career, having been accepted at the prestigious Oberlin College Conservatory of Music in Ohio. She had second thoughts about her future early into her tenure there, however, after Lyle Lovett, a family friend, appeared in Cleveland and invited Rodriguez to sit in with his Large Band as they rehearsed before the show.
''I think he wanted to check me out, to see how I sounded,'' Rodriguez says, adding with a laugh, ''At the time, I sucked really bad; I didn't have the feel to accompany that kind of music, I think I sounded too classical. But it was really fun trying and I wanted to do that more. Not long after that, I started investigating the Berklee College Of Music and decided that might be more like the place for me.''
After transferring to Berklee in Boston, where the focus is on contemporary music, Rodriguez found a mentor in Matt Glaser, ''this crazy, wild, bluegrass-jazz fiddle guy'' who was both a recording artist and professor, and made friends with fellow aspiring artists like Casey Driessen, now a popular player on the bluegrass and jam-band scene. When Lovett was scheduled to play Boston's Orpheum Theatre, he once again reached out to Rodriguez: ''He had recorded one of my dad's songs for his Step Inside This House album - 'Ballad of the Snow Leopard and the Tanqueray Cowboy' -- so invited me to play on it at sound check and really liked what I was doing. He asked me to perform in the show and made a sweet introduction...that my dad had written the song for my mother and now their daughter was here. It was so beautiful, playing with that big band. I thought, 'Man, this is really what I want to do.''
Chip Taylor, a prodigious songwriter and colorful character who'd penned such classic rock and country-pop hits as ''Wild Thing'' and ''Angel of the Morning,'' had a similar light-bulb moment as he watched Rodriguez in that Austin record shop in 2001. He decided then and there that Rodriguez had to join his band, but not just as a fiddle player. As Rodriguez recalls, ''When he hired me, he asked me if I sang back up and I probably said, 'Not really but maybe I could,' because I really wanted the gig and thought it would be a great experience playing fiddle with him. Then he put a microphone in front of me, probably at the first gig, and he said, 'If you feel inspired, here it is.' We didn't work anything out and I started trying things on the road, nothing major.
''Whatever he heard,'' she continues, ''he liked it enough that he wanted to try a duet.
He thought it would be something nice to have in the show. He taught me 'Storybook Children' [his 60's hit for Billy Vera & Judy Clay] and that was it. I did it and it scared me to death. I didn't think I was very good but people liked it in the show. It was so foreign, using my voice after so many years of playing the violin. It had been easy for me to hide behind my instrument; I always feel comfortable with it underneath my neck. In high school, if I had to make a speech, I'd have sleepless nights, yet I could get up and play a violin concerto in front of a few hundred people with no problem. Singing was the same: I was really nervous about it, but it just got easier and easier over time. And now I really enjoy doing it. I can't imagine what my life would be like without it.''
Seven Angels on a Bicycle, then, is both a destiny fulfilled and journey that's only just begun - for Carrie Rodriguez as a solo artist and for all of us as her soon-to-be-devoted listeners. Catch her on tour fronting a new three-piece band - with Hans Holzen on acoustic and electric guitars, Kyle Kegerreis on standup bass and Javier Vercher on drums and percussion -- starting this summer.
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