The Musical Box

asylum street spankers. back row: charlie king, christina marrs, morgan patrick thompson, famous jake. front row: wammo, mark henne, nevada newman. photo by todd williams

With local performances that date back to the summer of 1996, has Lexington been able to succinctly sum up the music and performance strategies of the Asylum Street Spankers?

No? Then, let’s give it a try right here. Take an acoustic troupe of Austin, Tx. musicians with a taste for blues, ragtime, gospel, vintage country and more. Toss in songs that encompass everything from children’s tunes to bits of very, very, very adult humor (sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll only begin to encompass the latter). Now, unleash all that onstage with a vaudevillian air that is anything but nostalgic. You now have at least a suggestion of why a Spankers performance is unlike anything you have ever witnessed - unless, of course, you’re part of the devout fanbase that has followed the band’s shows in Lexington over the past 12 years.

“It’s truly a remarkable thing that this band has been together for so long,” said the Spankers co-founder, co-vocalist and washboard ace that goes by the name of Wammo. Just Wammo.

“Before this, I never had a band last more than eight months. Well, except my first band back when I was 16. They rehearsed for a year, played one gig and broke up. We didn’t know what the hell we were doing.”

As it was a regular at the long-defunct Lynagh’s Music Club and the more recently demolished Dame location on West Main, Lexington has gotten to know a lot about the Spankers’ music over the years, from Christina Marrs’ musical saw interludes to Wammo’s affectionate mix of Appalachian murder ballads and gangster rap (on Hick Hop, a tune as mischievous as its name) to such curious social sing-a-long tunes as Winning the War on Drugs and Beer to covers of the blues chestnut Got My Mojo Workin’ , Harry Nilsson’s Think About Your Troubles and The B-52s’ Dance This Mess Around.

Not coincidentally, most of those moments are captured on a new double-disc concert album with a title that borrows from the performance tradition and vernacular the Spankers long ago embraced: What? And Give Up Show Biz?

The record was cut last January when the band, with the help of two alumni members (clarinetist Stanley Smith and violinist/emcee Korey Simeone), performed a two week engagement at New York’s Barrow Street Theatre.

“That was a blast,” Wammo said of the residency. “First of all, you don’t have to load your gear everyday. The gear stays there. Then, of course, we had New York City to play around in for two weeks. It was big, big fun.”

As Show Biz was designed to chronicle an entire performance by the Spankers at that time, it boasts stories and between-song narratives that may prove insightful, entertaining and maybe even frightening for novice and die-hard fans alike.

One such instance is titled The Bus Story, a seven-minute tale that details how Wammo and the rest of the Spankers encountered near-death experiences while separately enroute to the same gig. Clocking in at just over a minute is Gig From Hell, a radio theatre style scrapbook of nightmare performance moments that includes roaches scattering from stage monitors, band members climbing fire escapes with their gear to get to the stage and audiences that chatter incessantly on cell phones during quiet songs.

“Ah, yes,” Wammo said. “The gigs from hell. We’ve played our share of them, I tell you. Every moment of that story is true.”

Of course, the one thing that is continually new about the Spankers whenever the band plays Lexington is its lineup. Augmenting the core group of Wammo, guitarist Nevada Newman and mandolinist Charlie King will be three new players: bassist Morgan Patrick Thompson, drummer Mark Henne and violinist Jakob Breitbach, who goes by the stage name of Famous Jake.

The big difference this time, though, is who won’t be with the Spankers - namely, Marrs. No, the only original Spanker other than Wammo hasn’t split from the ranks. But as she is soon expecting her third child, Marrs has bowed out of the Spankers’ final tour of 2008.

So to compensate for her temporary absence, Wammo and the remaining Spankers will be resurrecting some of the band’s earliest material. Which brings to mind another highlight from Show Biz - something called Medley of Burned Out Songs, a mausoleum of tunes Wammo and Marrs simply got sick of playing.

“Yeah, we’re going to be doing some of those songs, too, along with some of the really old ones like Funny Cigarette (from the band’s 1996 studio debut album, Spanks for the Memories). We’re also going to be singing some of Christina’s songs. Working them up has been a lot of fun.”

Wammo said sessions will begin in December on the next Spankers record, which will be devoted to blues material. “But it will be a Spankers version of a blues album, not the typical white boy blues stuff.”

“When you get down to it, we’re very permissive. Christina and I have to be the bosses. But all that means is that we try to keep everything in line as far as rehearsals go. We don’t really tell anyone in the band what they can or cannot do. That can be tough in a way, because when you’re putting a band together, you’re essentially constructing a family. But you haven’t really grown up with these people, so you don’t know what their idiosyncrasies are. You have to get use to their weirdnesses, their smells, all the human aspects that come along with working and traveling with somebody.

“Most of the time, though, the Spankers are all chiefs and no Indians.”

Asylum Street Spankers perform at 10 p.m. tonight at Natasha’s Bistro, 112 Esplanade. Cover charge is $15. For reservations, call (859) 259-2754

the rev. al green. photo by christian lantry.

 ”I love you, Al.” It became a familiar between-song audience cry as the Rev. Al Green got down to business at an earthy and wildly involving soul sermon last night at the Norton Center for the Arts in Danville.

Like any good preacher, Green knew how to handle a congregation. When the proclamations of love poured forth before a fervently soulful I’m Still in Love With You erupted, Green answered honestly and succinctly. “Yes, but I love you more.”

Perhaps he did. Certainly no one could have predicted the sort of devout but youthful vigor Green, 62, displayed during his 80 minute show or how robust his voice - and more importantly, his intent - remained after nearly 40 years of singing on and off the pulpit.

During 1974’s Let’s Get Married, the most unexpected entry in the repertoire, Green cocked a leg in the air, arched his frame slightly backward and strutted to the groove like a man possessed. For the title tune to his 2008 Lay It Down album, Green hit a cruising altitude between tenor and falsetto that summoned a perfect vintage soul storm. And during the show closing Love and Happiness, Green navigated above a dense fabric of keyboard-driven funk that sounded less like a sleek soul revue and more like Talking Heads in its progressive, early ‘80s heyday.

There may have a bit of a tug of war between the spiritual and secular worlds that hold so much sway in Green’s music. Everything’s Gonna Be Alright, for instance, was a profession of faith he recorded in the late ‘80s. It sounded effortlessly vital last night, especially considering Green used it as a preface for a reading of Amazing Grace where he remained at bay from the microphone in order to play choir director for an audience sing-a-long.

But Green’s vintage soul hits were the true spectacles of testimony. “There are people wondering if Al Green has still got it,” the singer shouted near the end of his 1971 breakathrough hit Tired of Being Alone. With that, he raised his head to the heavens and let his ageless falsetto ring like siren. As outward as the song seemed, Green’s hit cover of the Bee Gees’ How Do You Mend a Broken Heart was all internalized, pressure cooker-level urgency. And when the Rev. Green unleashed Let’s Stay Together with a 20 megaton smile, the near-capacity crowd lit up like a Christmas tree.

There was a sense of theatricality to this performance, as in the art of tossing of roses to female fans throughout the concert. There was also a little trial-and-error underscored by the fact Green continually addressed the Danville audience as Lexington. Mostly, though, the show revolved around a sense of boundless cheer and grace, not to mention a voice that has lost not of its persuasiveness with the passing years.

In short, Rev. Al proved last night that he still knows how to command a flock.

sonny rollins: road shows, vol. 1

Saxophone colossus Sonny Rollins and bassist William Parker were born a generation and perhaps even a jazz lifetime apart.

Rollins remains the weary perfectionist, a product of bop tutledge who, at age 78, continues his life long search for the perfect - or, least the most befitting - tenor sax tone he can summon.

Like Rollins, Parker hails from New York. A frequent collaborator with two free jazz greats (David S. Ware and Peter Brotzmann), the bassist has been equally at home working in orchestra sized ensembles, dance projects and smaller combos. There is also a pronounced West African influence in his music. As such, Parker, 56, has developed into one of the bravest jazz journeyman and instrumentalists of recent decades.

On two new and seemingly polarized albums, each adheres to their strengths even as they modestly and briefly muscle into each other’s stylistic turf.

Rollins’ Road Shows, Vol. 1 is a compendium of concert recordings cut over 27 years in seven cities around the globe. Such scrapbook style assembly is unorthodox in most jazz contexts. Yet there is astonishing consistency within the music. With few exceptions, Road Shows sounds like it could have chronicled a single performance.

The commonalities can be traced, to a degree, to the personnel. Guitarist Bobby Broom and trombonist Clifton Anderson are present on over two decades worth of the Road Shows recordings. But it’s the manner in which Rollins interacts with both, especially Anderson (the only other horn player on the album) that is most telling. In their company, for better or worse, Rollins’ playing is tempered. His tone is warm, but still assertive. When a brief, boppish outburst settles into More Than You Know, two tenor sax ages of Rollins’ performance life converge. His playing initially is rustic and a little dangerous in a way that recalls his fabled ‘50s records. But when the band enters, the sound of today’s Rollins - skilled, lyrical but sometimes cautious - enters. The tone simply glows.

But the finale is the real treat - a reading of Some Enchanted Evening from the famed 2007 Carnegie Hall performance Rollins presented with bassist Christian McBride and drummer Roy Haynes. There is still a playfulness to Rollins’ soloing, but McBride seriously nudges Rollins on with sly, rubbery and powerfully soulful support.

william parker: petit oiseau

Now, switch to Malachi’s Mode, a merry requiem for the late bassist Malachi Favors on Parker’s sublime Petit Oiseau. You hear what might just be his closest recorded approximation to Rollins’ music. While trumpeter Lewis Barnes is a vital presence that helps shape the tune’s sunny stride, Parker uses longtime percussionist pal Hamid Drake and a sweet alto sax solo from Rob Brown to design profound yet subtle swing. The communication is just as flexible as what Rollins attains on Some Enchanted Evening.

Petit Oiseau was recorded a mere six months after Double Bass over Neptune, a large scale band and vocal piece that debuted at New York’s Vision Festival. That’s a braver work, though a more difficult listen. Petit Oiseau, with its quartet intimacy and muscular bass foundation, is more welcoming. As is the case with Rollins’ newer music, it might be viewed as a touch safe by longstanding fans. But for ears owing less allegiance to the past, Petit Oiseau is a joyous listen by an underappreciated jazz giant.

the rev. al green. photo by christian lantry.

“Man, I wish the Derby was going on while I was there,” said the Rev. Al Green of his impending Kentucky performance. “We could go out and put some money on those horses. But seeing as I’m a preacher, I’d have to keep my bets to two dollars and fifty cents.”

Following such a modest proclamation was a vocal trait almost as endearing and distinctive to Green as his singing: laughter. It came like a cloudburst - quick, explosive and transforming. Almost without realizing it, you find yourself laughing with him.

“Hey man, when I sing For the Good Times (the Kris Kristofferson song Green refashioned into a soul hit in 1981), it means ‘for the good times.’ It don’t mean for the bad times. It means we’re going make the most of our time together. We’re going to make it work. We gotta make it work, because it’s getting pretty late in the game, baby.”

One can’t help but think Rev. Al has his next Sunday sermon in mind when he talks like that. After all, the veteran soul singer with the killer falsetto has also been an ordained minister in his adopted hometown of Memphis for over 30 years.

But “late in game” seems to also reflect the secular side of Green’s life and music. Two days before our conversation, he was winding up a European tour in support of Lay It Down. The recording is the third in a series of critically lauded albums for the Blue Note label that have set Green back on the path of the earthy, upbeat soul he explored during the early ‘70s. The hits Green fashioned back then with producer Willie Mitchell - Let’s Stay Together, Tired of Being Alone, Love and Happiness, I’m Still In Love With You, Here I Am (Come and Take Me) and many others - came to define one of the final golden eras of American soul music.

“Every house we played over there was rocking,” Green said of the European tour. “But this music is my life, man. I’ve been doing it ever since I came to Memphis and met Willie Mitchell in ‘70 or ‘71. We’re gonna do what we do wherever we go.”

Curiously, Lay It Down is the only one of the three Blue Note albums (2003’s I Can’t Stop and 2005’s Everything’s OK were the others) that did not have Mitchell at the helm. Instead, Green co-produced Lay It Down with Ahmir “?uestlove” Thompson of The Roots. He also enlisted such new generation soul stars as John Legend, Corinne Bailey Rae and Anthony Hamilton.

While it summons more of Green’s ‘70s muse than the other Blue Note projects, the songs on Lay It Down were hardly pre-meditated. In fact, he wrote the bulk of the album’s material with Thompson and several collaborators after recording sessions had begun.

To set the scene, Green keeps his distance to offer a third person perspective of his work at the sessions.

“If you had a picture of Al at the recording sessions, he would be sitting on the floor. Everybody else would be around him - the organ player, the drummer, the bass player. They’re all in a circle around him.

“That first night we got together, we wrote eight songs. I was talking to Willie about that. He thought that was astounding. So I asked if he liked the album. He said, ‘Of course, I like it. My only problem is I didn’t get to produce it.’ But he wished me well, hugged me and said, ‘Hey man, a fine album.’”

What Lay It Down shares with the preceding Blue Note records is Green’s boundless vocal exuberance. At 62, the gleam and fire of his falsetto and the sheer jubilance of his phrasing haven’t diminished.  The singer admits he takes care of himself, walks 3 ½ miles every morning and again, “at a very brisk pace,” in the evening.

“I’m still striving to be the best,” Green said. “The girl singers in our band say, ‘What are you trying to do when you’re out there onstage singing that hard?’ I say, ‘I’m trying to perfect something.’ And they’ll go, “Perfect something? This music was perfected when you cut it.’”

With that, the laughter pours out again like a waterfall. “I guess my music is like an oil painting. I just try to touch it up - a little blue here, maybe a little red or white. I just want to perfect it so when I’m done with it, I can say, ‘Now I can sign my name at the bottom of it and present it.’ That’s it.”

When asked if he had a favorite song among those paintings, Green momentarily fell silent before using audience reception on his recent North American and European tours as a gauge.

“Whether it’s overseas or in America, it’s going to be Let’s Stay Together. On that one, everyone stands, everyone sings and everyone dances. And then Al comes out and throws flowers and roses everywhere (reviews of Green’s recent shows attest to the latter). It’s just a song that makes everyone come together.”

Of course, when Al Green, soul superstar and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, isn’t touring the world, he remains Rev. Al to the members of the Full Gospel Tabernacle in Memphis. But while concert audiences and church congregations may approach his music with different forms of devotion, Green says spiritual and secular followings are more similar than either realize.

“Man, I find life similar,” Green said. “And I always will. If we look at ourselves, we will fine we have more in common than our differences. Take both groups and put them together and you have the answer because if you smile, the whole world is going to smile with you. But if you’re a cry baby, well you’ll just be crying by yourself.” 

Al Green performs at 8 p.m. Nov. 18 at Newlin Hall at the Norton Center for the Arts, Centre College in Danville. Tickets are $60, $70, $80. Call (877) 448-7469.

kori gardner and jason hammel of mates of state. photo by crackerfarm.

“OK. This is gonna suck. Get ready.”

Such was the warning given by Mates of State keyboardist Kori Gardner last night at The Dame on a rainsoaked evening that coincided with a season opening University of Kentucky basketball loss. Spirits, on anyone’s part, weren’t terribly high.

Specifically, the response was to an audience request that the husband-and-wife indie pop duo take a unrehearsed stab at An Experiment. The tune was built not all that long ago (2003 to be exact) around Mates of State’s organ/drums matrix, a sound that took a back seat for much of last night’s 75 minute set in favor of the more modified Roland piano and Korg synthesizer colors that bleebed, gurgled and punctuated through the pop fare from the new Re-Arrange Us album.

Admittedly, the tune was a little rough around the rhythmic edges, but An Experiment proved to be anything but. For much of the performance, regardless of whether it operated with a modified version of the familiar Mates of Stare organ charge (on the elemental Proofs from 2000’s My Solo Project album) or a more pasteurized piano cool (during Get Better, a bittersweet take on Re-Arrange Us‘ sunny pop stride), the formula seldom shifted.

Drummer Jason Hammel designed steady, even static drum grooves that became percussive mantras for Gardner’s primitive keyboard colors. There were a few variances, like a cameo by the show-opening Brother Reade, which injected Goods (All in Your Head) with hearty hip-hop that bordered on beat poetry. A double dose of alternating pop hooks also cleverly collided during Fluke. Hammel even got a centerstage break from the drums to sing lead on a fairly lumbering cover of Jackson Browne’s These Days.

Mostly though, the duos’s rough but hearty harmonies and elemental melodies ran on with unwavering, almost mechanical exactness.

mates of state: kori gardner and jason hammel . photo by cracker farm.

OK, let’s address the seemingly biggest shift in Mates of State’s music right off the bat.

Since its inception over a decade ago, the husband and wife duo of Jason Hammel and Kori Kardner constructed their luminously bright indie pop songs almost exclusively on drums and keyboards. And not just any keyboards, mind you - but a ‘70s organ with a huge, swelling and marvelously organic sound.

Hammel and Kardner wrote songs on it. They recorded with it. They dragged the thing out on the road. As the duo’s popularity grew, the organ became viewed as one of the most recognizable, distinctive and ultimately essential components of the Mates of State sound.

So why is it then that the instrument’s presence on the band’s new Re-Arrange Us album has been so severely downsized? The reason boils down to an ages-old artistic urge: the desire for change.

“We had been writing songs on that big, vintage organ for over four albums now,” Hammel said. “And we were like, ‘You know what? We’re getting kind of bored with this sound. Let’s use a bunch of other sounds and see of we can still maintain the energy of Mates of State.

“That was our biggest concern. Was the organ - or the lack of it, really - detrimental to that energy? Thankfully, we found out that it wasn’t.”

That explains why the first thing you hear as Re-Arrange Us comes to life isn’t organ, but a gentle, solitary hammering of piano. But when Gardner’s soothing vocals and the equally evocative pop melody of the album’s lead-off tune, Get Better, kick in, you realize what really rules Mates of State’s sunny, though sometimes bittersweet sound: vocals and truckloads of alert pop hooks.

In short, the real change on Re-Arrange Us isn’t in the band’s overall sound, but in the choice of tools employed to create it.

“We found out it was the vocals that really explained what we are,” Hammel said.

And the pop sensibility within the band’s music? Hammel confessed that evolved over time and a few fairly unexpected influences.

“You would be surprised. I listened to a lot of metal when I was in junior high. Then I got into skateboarding, so I got into skate punk. When I got into college, I started listening more to college indie rock. Once I got out, that’s when I started to get into the more classic music by Leonard Cohen, The Beatles, Pink Floyd and Nick Cave. Right now, I’d say they are my biggest influences. But at an early age, it was metal and punk rock.”

Another highly unexpected inspiration that played a major role in the evolution of Mates of State’s music was Ira Glass, host and producer of public radio’s This American Life. When Glass mounted a touring production of the show in 2007, he invited Hammel and Gardner along. But instead of organ, Gardner found herself playing piano.

“We really felt a sense of accomplishment as a band being able to play alongside Ira and the calibre of his writers,” Hammel said.

“We were playing big, sit down, 3,000 seat capacity theatres in cities like Boston, New York, Seattle and Chicago. For the shows, we played maybe five or six songs, just piano and drums. That kind of gave us the impetus to start mixing up our own tours a little bit. We could still have tours where it would just be straight up rock with the two of us. But there could also be tours where there might be various configurations of instruments to portray our sound in ways that would be different and fun.

An example of the latter came when Mates of State toured over the summer. For newer songs off of Re-Arrange Us, the duo became a quartet with the addition of brothers Anton and Lewis Patzner, the cellist and violinist from the California “string metal” band Judgement Day. When Hammel and Gardner play tonight at The Dame, multi-instrumentalist (and Mates of State tour manager) Chris Cosgrove will sit in for roughly half of the performance.

Truth to tell, Hammel and Gardner have two permanent additions to their touring entourages that most audiences never get to see - their daughters Magnolia and June. It seems the family that plays together does indeed stay together.

“We definitely have an untraditional lifestyle,” Hammel said. “But it’s not that odd or strange, really. We are able to do what we love and still have a family. That’s not to say we don’t go through a lot of the same tribulations of anyone else who works, is an artist or has a family.

“It’s really the only way we can make things work. If Kori and I were in different bands, it would be very difficult. I know we wouldn’t want to be away from each other for the amount of time it would take to properly work with those bands. So we feel fortunate. We feel satisfied. But we’re never complacent. We want more.”

Mates of State and Brother Reade perform at 8 tonight at The Dame, 367 East Main. Tickets are $10 advance and $12 at the door. Call (859) 231-7263.

guitarist kevin williams with the soweto gospel choir. photo by oliver neubert.

There was no denying the simple, emotive pageantry executed by the Soweto Gospel Choir last night during a program where world music met global spiritual expression at Danville’s Norton Center for the Arts.

At the onset of Jesu Ngowethu, a lone tenor voice ushered in two rows of singers from opposite sides of the stage. A pair of percussionists supplied the tune’s only accompaniment. Still, the force of the gathering 24 vocalists singing in Zulu sounded keenly orchestral.

Roughly a third of the concert had choir members playing electric guitar, keyboards, bass and a conventional drum kit. But such modern accompaniment tended to give the music a standardized pop feel. Similarly, some of the contemporary songs of unity, as in the brief pass at Bob Marley’s One Love offered as an interlude in the otherwise arresting Zulu meditation Avulekile Amasango, muted some of the traditional township edge in the choir’s singing.

But the performance’s most moving moments were also its simplest, as in the gorgeous traditional African hymn Tshepa Thapelo (sung in Sotho) and a novel Amazing Grace (sung in English, but with all kinds of arresting township harmonies).

A blend of global gospel and West Coast soul on Oh, Happy Day finally put the Norton Center crowd on its feet near evening’s end. The cultures summoning the spirits at this point seemed purposely undefined, but the jubilance in the resulting testimony couldn’t have been more unified or obvious.

mitch mitchell in 2007. photo by kieran doherty/reuters.

When the touring tribute ensemble Experience Hendrix dug into The Wind Cries Mary two weeks ago at the Kentucky Center for the Arts in Louisville, all eyes were on the star performers.

Singing lead was young guitar buck Jonny Lang. Shredding another set of strings was Aerosmith guitarist Brad Whitford. Behind the third of three drum kits was Chris Layton, the beat-keeper for Steve Ray Vaughan’s Double Trouble band.

Sitting behind the second kit, almost innocuously, was Mitch Mitchell. On the surface, he didn’t seem to be adding much. Mitchell tended to roam about the stage that night, sitting in when a particular song suited him with a rhythm that was, to say the least, casual.

But Mitchell possessed something essential to an A-list concert tribute to the great Jimi Hendrix. He was living history. Specifically, he was the last surviving member of the guitarist’s seminal late ‘60s trio, The Jimi Hendrix Experience. That he didn’t even attempt to recreate in Louisville the fire he, Hendrix and bassist Noel Redding summoned on three groundbreaking studio albums - 1967’s Are You Experienced? and Axis: Bold as Love and 1968’s Electric Ladyland  - was almost beside the point. He was the living link to the man himself. Until yesterday.

With Experience Hendrix’s 18 city tour complete, Mitchell was found dead yesterday in a Portland, Oregon hotel room. The only official reason being given so far is “natural causes.” He was 62.

the jimi hendrix experience in 1967: mitch mitchell, jimi hendrix, noel redding.

While no one upstaged Hendrix in his heyday, Mitchell often shadowed him beautifully. He was there when the Experience’s music - a stormy, psychedelic and blues drenched circus - invaded American shores after having conquered England in 1967. Check out the extraordinary concert collection Live at Monterey (which was re-issued last year), the two-disc BBC Sessions (compiled and issued in 1998) or even the familiar studio debut Are You Experienced? for optimal insight into the very rockish road Mitchell navigated with Hendrix.

On Electric Ladyland, the last album by the original Experience, the changes were advancing rapidly upon the guitarist’s music. Mitchell never missed a beat once they arrived. The pop rumble of Crosstown Traffic, the blues strain of Voodoo Chile (the first of Ladyland’s two versions), the Traffic-like psychedelic abandon of Burning of the Midnight Lamp, the loose-fitting swing of Rainy Day, Dream Away and the darkly majestic re-make of Bob Dylan’s All Along the Watchtower - this was, collectively, Hendrix’s best work. Throughout it all, Mitchell was the anchor as Hendrix’s guitarwork scaled the heavens.

Finally, there was the second Experience band with Billy Cox (who also performed with Experience Hendrix) replacing Redding. The music became more elemental. The groove became earthier. There were also touches of jazz, especially in the music captured on the flawed but still vital Blue Wild Angel, a 2002 set that chronicled Hendrix’s set at the Isle of Wight Festival shortly before his death in 1970.

Had Hendrix lived to further explore the R&B and jazz elements forecasted on Blue Wild Angel, Mitchell would have likely been an eager and industrious co-pilot.

My favorite Hendrix/Mitchell moment: a 1969 blues jam version of Villanova Junction from a limited edition 2004 CD of the same name. It is a glorious 27 minute instrumental jam with the guitarist and drummer conversing, constructing and merrily locking horns.

At the end of the Experience Hendrix concert in Louisville, Mitchell took the microphone as the ensemble gathered for a final bow and bid the crowd good night in a broken British dialect that recalled Keith Richards. An electric smile beamed across his face.

And why not? His greatest music was being celebrated right alongside the career triumphs of Hendrix. In short, another generation had experienced the Experience.

the soweto gospel choir performs tonight in danville.

As he speaks from his hotel room in Vancouver, British Columbia, Kevin Williams is half-a-world away from home. But as a three year member of the Soweto Gospel Choir, he has become a versed global traveler.

In short, Williams carries home with him. As one of the Grammy-winning choir’s 27 touring vocalists, he brings his faith, voice and message of hope wherever he travels.

“As individuals, you can find yourself by yourself,” said the native of Durban, South Africa. “You could be in your hotel room, where you often look at pictures and think of home. But as a choir, we are family. When we’re together, we’re home. When we’re onstage, we know our family members are around us. It takes our mind off the distance of home and the measure of love we’re missing. But we receive that same measure within the choir.”

In just over six years, the Soweto Gospel Choir and become one of the most visible world music enterprises to emerge out of post-Apartheid South Africa. Formed as a self-described “super choir” by musical director David Mulovhedzi, the choir gathered singers predominantly in their late teens and twenties from Soweto and Johannesburg.

“Growing up in South Africa, we knew, as did our parents’ and our parents’ parents, that one of the main ways of communication was through music,” Williams said. “That music speaks through many tongues in many different ways. But the songs always make you feel loved. They make you feel good about yourself. It has really made a difference in our lives, especially the spiritual side of the music.”

Language is seldom a barrier for the choir, Williams said, as the population of South Africa speaks 11 officially recognized languages. Within the choir itself, several members speak four or more languages. Some are fluent in as many as eight. On the choir’s new concert CD/DVD Live at the Nelson Mandela Theatre, songs are predominantly sung in zulu and sotho, although introductions and explanations are provided in English.

Then there is the repertoire. Much of the music is a capella. Some is augmented by percussion. Other tunes enhance the singing with surprisingly Americanized rhythm sections. Similarly, mixed in with the predominantly traditional African music are established American hymns (Amazing Grace) and even pop songs with strongly spiritual casts, such as Bob Marley’s One Love and Bob Dylan’s I’ll Remember You.

“It’s the meaning and the motives behind these songs that inspire us,” Williams said. “One of the songs on the album is called World in Union. We see that as a plan. As a group from South Africa, we one day hope for a universe of people standing as one.”

For now, though, a number of high profile fans are standing with the Soweto Gospel Choir’s message of faith and unity. Some are cultural heroes, including former South African president Nelson Mandela. Last summer, the choir performed as part of an all-star concert honoring Mandela’s 90^th birthday (other invitees included Annie Lennox, Quincy Jones and Sidney Poitier). Others are non-African artists that have helped introduce the world to world music. Leading that list is Peter Gabriel, who collaborated with the choir on Down to Earth, the closing credits tune from last summer’s Disney/Pixar robot flick Wall-E.

“He was one of the guys who really motivated us while we worked with him,” Williams said of Gabriel. “We’ve been really touched by his songs and just by his presence alone.”

But Williams stressed that the choir’s spiritual fervency is expressed generously in any company, be it the Canadian crowd the group performed for recently, the Kentucky audience that will be waiting at Danville’s Norton Center for the Arts tonight or the South African communities that will greet Williams and his mates when the choir’s sense of home finally returns home.

“We are the Soweto Gospel Choir,” he said. “The name alone should tell you we sing gospel music. In everything we do, we put God first. So everybody in Kentucky should look forward to a blessed time with us. Come to expect, come to receive, come to accept a different sound and a different style of music.”

Soweto Gospel Choir performs at 8 p.m. tonight at the Norton Center for the Arts at Centre College in Danville. Tickets ate $40, $45 and $50. Call (877) 448-7469.

harold budd & clive wright: a song for lost blossoms

While wading through Pensive Aphrodite, the hypnotic 32-minute opening suite on A Song for Lost Blossoms, keyboardist and ambient music pioneer Harold Budd along with guitarist Clive Wright (of Cock Robin, the band responsible for the neglected mid ‘80s pop hit, When Your Heart is Weak) unexpectedly peel back the years.

Within Pensive Aphrodite, Budd’s keyboards set up attractive orchestrations that move in ultra-slow motion, just as they have on his albums for the past three decades. Wright’s guitar colors don’t serve as a foil or even a conversation piece. They instead drift in and out the keyboard maze to modestly intensify the mood. In other words, Wright is a welcome visitor to Budd’s ambient plateau - but a visitor, nonetheless.

That we even have this collaboration is something of a wonder. Budd announced his retirement four years ago. So the release of A Song for Lost Blossoms comes as something of a surprise even if the music it contains is often indistinguishable from Budd’s other atmospheric recordings.

fripp & eno: no pussyfooting

But another reference point surfaces when listening to Lost Blossoms. The way Wright’s guitar seems to almost subvert the recording’s meditative stance brings to mind one of the great blueprint albums in progressive instrumental music: 1973’s No Pussyfooting by Robert Fripp and Brian Eno. And, what a coincidence, that record and its 1975 followup, Evening Star, have been beautifully remastered and reissued this fall.

One could argue there are links to the revolutionary classicism of John Cage or even the early electronic adventures of Tangerine Dream in No Pussyfooting. But Fripp and Eno - the former then in the thick of his most adventurous ‘70s music with King Crimson while the latter had split from Roxy Music to begin a musical voyage that would team him with Budd in the early ‘80s - mostly design their own template of sound with drone like effects, primitive tape loops and harmony that remains otherworldly to this day.

The opening passage of No Pussyfooting’s The Heavenly Music Corporation, in fact, sounds less like electronic music and more like an elongated chant where guitar, keyboards and tape effects blur. It’s not until the unmistakable tone of Fripp’s guitarwork enters in layers that you get much feel for which instrumentalist is doing what.

Wright’s guitar doesn’t play against anything nearly so confrontational on Lost Blossoms. One of No Pussyfooting’s most arresting traits, after all, remains its sense of dynamics. The ebb and flow of its music is still breathtaking. But the way Wright services and reacts to Budd’s more contemplative backdrops is similar.

Those who have enjoyed No Pussyfooting for years will find big fun in the reissue’s bounteous bonus material. It reconstructs the entire album in reverse (the effect is only slightly less startling than the original recording) and all of Heavenly Music in a half speed exercise where guitar glacially embellishes the music over 41 minutes.

fripp & eno: evening star

There is no such tinkering on the remastered Evening Star, a perhaps less daring but far more approachable work where the compositional links to Budd’s music are stronger. Within the contours of Evensong, Wind on Wind and Evening Star’s title track, is a serene but substantial aural fabric that still serves as a proud forefather to the ambient-minded generations that came in the music’s gloriously understated wake.