Music for Grownups Reviews: Emmylou Harris, Dennis Wilson
By: Richard Gehr | Source: AARP.org | 2008-06-17
Richard Gehr is a veteran music critic based in New York City. His reviews for AARP.org appear every Tuesday; his columns on Thursdays.
Emmylou Harris
"All I Intended to Be"
Nonesuch
There's a note—actually, there are many notes—of finality in the silver-maned country queen's first solo album since 2003's "Stumble Into Grace."
The goodbyes begin with the opening track, "Shores of White Sand," a Jack Wesley Routh song Harris sings over instrumental tracks recorded 25 years ago for Karen Brooks. Dedicated to the late Doobie Brothers drummer, Keith Knudsen, "Shores" anticipates the album's final five songs, which include Merle Haggard's "Kern River," Billy Joe Shaver's "Old Five and Dimers Like Me," and Harris's own "Take That Ride" and "Not Enough." As elegantly sung and played as they are, the tunes seem to comprise a single extended meditation on going gently, or not, into that good night.
Dennis Wilson
"Pacific Ocean Blue"
Caribou/Epic/Legacy
Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson may have been more of a croaker than a singer, but he definitely had an ear for thick, lush, inventive arrangements.
Released originally in 1977, "Pacific Ocean Blue" was the first solo album by a Beach Boy. Wilson's tempestuous relationship with his third wife, Karen Lamm-Wilson (whom he married and divorced twice), constitutes the album's emotional core, but his anguished vocals are buried beneath a dense thicket of overdubbed percussion, strings, and miscellaneous sound effects.
Perhaps in honor of the upcoming 25th anniversary of Wilson's alcohol-related drowning, "Pacific Ocean Blue" has been freshly remastered and repackaged with bonus tracks and a second CD's worth of unreleased material from what would have been his sophomore release, "Bambu."
Like Wilson itself, "Bambu" sounds unfinished, tragic, and yet strangely full of life.
"All I Intended to Be"
Nonesuch
There's a note—actually, there are many notes—of finality in the silver-maned country queen's first solo album since 2003's "Stumble Into Grace."
The goodbyes begin with the opening track, "Shores of White Sand," a Jack Wesley Routh song Harris sings over instrumental tracks recorded 25 years ago for Karen Brooks. Dedicated to the late Doobie Brothers drummer, Keith Knudsen, "Shores" anticipates the album's final five songs, which include Merle Haggard's "Kern River," Billy Joe Shaver's "Old Five and Dimers Like Me," and Harris's own "Take That Ride" and "Not Enough." As elegantly sung and played as they are, the tunes seem to comprise a single extended meditation on going gently, or not, into that good night.
Dennis Wilson
"Pacific Ocean Blue"
Caribou/Epic/Legacy
Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson may have been more of a croaker than a singer, but he definitely had an ear for thick, lush, inventive arrangements.
Released originally in 1977, "Pacific Ocean Blue" was the first solo album by a Beach Boy. Wilson's tempestuous relationship with his third wife, Karen Lamm-Wilson (whom he married and divorced twice), constitutes the album's emotional core, but his anguished vocals are buried beneath a dense thicket of overdubbed percussion, strings, and miscellaneous sound effects.
Perhaps in honor of the upcoming 25th anniversary of Wilson's alcohol-related drowning, "Pacific Ocean Blue" has been freshly remastered and repackaged with bonus tracks and a second CD's worth of unreleased material from what would have been his sophomore release, "Bambu."
Like Wilson itself, "Bambu" sounds unfinished, tragic, and yet strangely full of life.
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