SOUND CHECK.RYAN ADAMS David Ryan Adams (born November 5, 1974) is a prolific American alt-country/rock singer-songwriter from Jacksonville, North Carolina. Raised by his mother and grandmother, Adams dropped out of school at age 16 and performed with several local bands before moving to Raleigh and & THE CARDINALS: ``Jacksonville City Nights'' (Lost Highway) - Three stars Yet another album from promiscuously prolific singer-songwriter Adams, ``JCN'' is an almost free-association concoction of classic country moods and surrealistically personal, Gram Parsons-ish lyrics. Jon Graboff's gravity-roping pedal steel pedal steel n. An electronically amplified guitar mounted on legs, with up to ten strings whose pitch can be altered by sliding a steel bar across them or by depressing pedals attached to them. Also called pedal steel guitar. forms a kind of sonic through-line as Adams diddles around with honky tonk A honky tonk is a type of bar with musical entertainment common in the Southwestern and Southern United States, also called honkatonks, honkey-tonks, tonks or tunks. The term has also been attached to various styles of 20th-century American music. , Western swing, mountain ballad and other not necessarily complementary motifs. Our ambitious lad's vocals lean toward Orbison-ian vibrato vi·bra·to n. pl. vi·bra·tos A tremulous or pulsating effect produced in an instrumental or vocal tone by minute and rapid variations in pitch. when they don't sound like they're about to shake totally out of control. Norah Jones Norah Jones (born Geethali Norah Jones Shankar on March 30 1979 in Brooklyn, New York) is an American singer-songwriter, musician and occasional actress of American and Indian descent. helps anchor matters with one haunting duet. - Bob Strauss JOHN COLTRANE “Coltrane” redirects here. For other uses, see Coltrane (disambiguation). John William Coltrane (September 23 1926 – July 17 1967), nicknamed Trane, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. : ``One Down, One Up: Live at the Half Note'' (Impulse) - Three stars Bob Dylan fans aren't the only ones reveling in an unearthing of buried treasure. This two-disc set follows the superlative Monk-Coltrane Carnegie Hall concert released last month. Unfortunately, it proves a hard act to follow. The sound quality on the Half Note dates - recorded in March and May 1965, not long after Coltrane's classic quartet produced its career summation, ``A Love Supreme'' - is spotty. The recordings sometimes begin in the middle of a performance and fade out during a solo. And yet Coltrane completists won't want to pass this up because the sound, as is, beats the bootlegs, and hearing Trane's ferocious solo in ``Song of Praise'' is a thing of frightening beauty. - Glenn Whipp CAPTION(S): 2 photos Photo: (1 -- 2) no caption (CD covers) |
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