The Musical Box

james falzone of klang. photo by jeff meacham.

Judging by its fine two-set performance last night at Al’s Bar, the Chicago quartet Klang seemed quite content to be a conduit between worlds of jazz tradition and new frontiers of free improvisation.

Led by clarinetist James Falzone, Klang played from a number of stylistic bases. Some celebrated swing, but not always the standardized tempos associated with it. The opening G.F.O.P., for instance, let swing and blues accents accelerate, fracture and unite for some impressively rugged harmonic passages.

Other compositions - many of which were pulled from Klang’s indie debut album, Tea Music - made ample use of Falzone’s accomplices. For Still Life, drummer Tim Daisy played hushed rumbles with mallets before offering an arsenal of percussive shots on small gongs and cymbals, all of which created a merry klang indeed.

But it was the way clarinet mingled with the vibraphone work of Jason Adasiewicz that seemed to open the most stylistic doors. During Lament on Ash Wednesday, the mood was cool but restless with Adasiewicz playing the vibes not with mallets but with a bow. The resulting sound - thin but eerie - equally played off the bowed bass work of Jason Roebke. But on Memories Of You, modeled on Benny Goodman’s version of the Eubie Blake tune, the vibes emitted a rich, lyrical glow.

It’s perhaps an easy and obvious reference, but it was hard not to hear the inspiration of vibes great Gary Burton in Adasiewicz’s playing, from his sometimes deeply percussive attack to the way he appropriated attractive shades of blues into his playing during the original tune I Hope She is Awake.

Goodman and another clarinet giant, Jimmy Giuffre, were compositional models for the performance, as shown by the band’s deft mix of blues cool and improvisational bursts during a version of Giuffre’s Me Too. But as the second of two sets progressed, free improvisation gained more ground, whether it was in the Zappa-like animation of #32 Busonius or the jagged rhythmic turns, and the wonderful moments of quiet they often paved the way for, on China Black.

The evening’s only sore spot was the bar chatter at Al’s. It was light enough to be dismissed during the first set. But in the second, the idle, uninvolved bar speak became very intrusive. Al’s is an intimate setting. Voices carry. On some beer soaked Saturday with indie rock in the spotlight, it wouldn’t matter. On a rainy Tuesday where a small but attentive audience was soaking in all it could from Klang, such empty chatter was a rude and distracting annoyance.

matisyahu.

Let’s face it folks, finding a spiritual, much less a musical, link between Brooklyn and Jerusalem on a Monday night in Lexington is one serious trick. Yet that was the sort of bridge that Hasidic reggae-rap star Matisyahu constructed last night at Buster’s.

Admittedly, to the much of the pop world, Matisyahu’s music is all about groove. And last night there was plenty of it thanks to a five member band that pumped up plump reggae and dub fabrics as a backdrop for Matisyahu’s vocals.

There were unquestionably hip hop references, as well. But the rhythms were saturated far more in reggae while the overall musical framework frequently shifted into jam band mode - as shown by an enticing instrumental workout that prefaced Ancient Lullaby. With the music, not the lyrics in the driver’s seat, Matisyahu, with Hasidic locks dangling from under a black yarmulke, simply bounced about the stage, enjoying the dense patterns of keyboards and guitars as much as his audience.

There were a few concessions to mainstream rap, such as freestyle rhymes and beat box jams mid way through the performance that were very pedestrian given the more overtly spiritual plains attained during King Without a Crown, One Day and Lord Raise Me Up.

In fact, the truly moving affirmations didn’t revolve around lyrics or reggae-fied narratives at all. When the band’s rhythms morphed into a fetching psychedelic blur, Matisyahu let loose with a wordless high tenor wail that was heavily accentuated by reverb. When that mix was allowed to reach a boil, it didn’t matter what particular faith or spiritual plain one embraced. The music’s rich ambience and obvious devotional dedication was now open to everyone.

jean-luc ponty.

It was easy last night at the Singletary Center for the Arts to overlook the technical and instinctual command within Jean-Luc Ponty’s musicianship when compositions were presented as such accessible, melodic delicacies.

But there instances - several of them, in fact - where the landmark French violinist briefly climbed on board the ostinato express to dish out a few dizzying runs on the strings. That at least reminded the audience of exactly the sort of unassuming musical force it was dealing with.

When compared to the mighty fusion music Ponty was known for the late ‘70s and ‘80s, the performance seemed almost delicate. There were no synthesizers and sequencers, just a grand piano and Kurtsweil keyboard at the hands of longtime Ponty bandmate William Lecomte. There were no MIDI systems or echo effects to alter the violin’s natural voice and, as has been the case with Ponty’s bands for the past decade, no guitars.

So with the extra weight gone, the 1 ¾ hour performance flew by with an often effortless lyrical grace. Older, more anthemic and sometimes darker works like Cosmic Messenger, The Struggle of the Turtle to the Sea and especially the show opening Demagomania bore unexpectedly warm but still highly electric casts while newer pieces like On My Way To Bombay and the encore selection To and Fro revealed a pop friendly bounce.

Even tunes that called for the most musical might often sounded playful at the core, as in a medley that matched the 2007 composition Celtic Steps with the 1982 piece it was adapted from, Jig. Here, Ponty’s playing was suitably spry but also open enough to give bassist Baron Browne room to beef up the folky groove.

As fun as all this electricity was, the performance’s highlights came when Ponty largely cut himself loose from amplification. With Lecomte on piano, the violinist performed an almost shy sounding ballad called Last Memories of Her that possessed chamber style finesse.

But the killer was the unaccompanied violin melody of 1983’s Nostalgia and 2007’s Desert Crossing. The former, a tune first recorded with a massively computerized keyboard arrangement, revealed attractive ostinatos in this solo acoustic setting that shot into warp speed on the latter work. From a technical standpoint, this was a stunner - a medley with a temperament that seemed ready to implode before Ponty brought the whole daredevil act to a conclusion with a brief swing flourish.

The bluegrass flavored New Country - a signature tune for Ponty, although he seldom plays it anymore - was served as a finale. Maybe the lure of playing bluegrass fusion in the Bluegrass (this was, after all, Ponty’s Lexington debut) explained why he dusted off the song. No matter. It was a suitable coda for a program that nicely balanced instrumental muscle, stylistic cunning and a simple sense of musical good spirits.

robert earl keen.

“Hey, it’s just like the Oak Ridge Boys,” remarked Robert Earl Keen as the pace behind a merry country melody picked up last night at the Opera House.

Well, maybe not - especially since the tune in question was Copenhagen, a love song where the only thing that comes between the guy and the girl is a mouthful of chaw. Truth to tell, Keen’s acoustic performance with Todd Snider and Bruce Robison was a lesson in magnificent imperfection. All three writers performed separately and together without bands. The often diverse temperaments of their songs served as the performance’s only real artistic glue.

Keen pulled a fast one on the crowd, especially the numerous late-comers, by opening the program with a half-dozen world class Texas-fueled yarns. There was little denying that a touch of the brilliant Lone Star color inherent in Keen’s music was lost without the aid of his expert touring band. But in its place was a heightened sense of storytelling that he has scaled back on in recent years. Sure, gems like Gringo Honeymoon and the wistful homecoming portrait Feelin’ Good Again needed little introduction. But Keen prefaced one his best known songs by recalling a correspondence between his mother and uncle.

“Joe, Robert has written the most awful song.”

“Well, Juanita, is the song true?”

“Hell yes, it’s true.”

With that he sailed into Merry Christmas from the Family, his irreverently poetic snapshot of a dysfunctional holiday celebration.

bruce robison.

Robison, a fellow Texan whose songs have become hits for country kingpins like George Strait and Tim McGraw, offered a set of more streamlined tunes where the lyrical creases Keen so openly underscored were ironed out. That didn’t make songs with such generous melodic charm as Lifeline or Wrapped any less enjoyable. In fact, Robison poked fun at his own fortunes when introducing Travelin’ Soldier. The tune was a major hit for the Dixie Chicks the week Natalie Maines made public her infamous evaluation of then-President Bush. Robison last night dubbed the single as “the fastest descending No. 1 hit in country music history.”

todd snider.

Snider couldn’t resist a jab to corporate Nashville after Robison’s set. He admitted ahead of Money, Compliments, Publicity (Song Number Ten) that the tune was inspired less by the demons of artistic gluttony that inhabit its lyrics and more by a need to quickly think of a toss-off song to complete his new The Excitement Plan album. “Then I thought, ‘Hey, that’s how they make country music now.’”

A second set brought the three artists together to swap songs for just over an hour. But their stylistic differences were on display just as much when they weren’t singing as when they were given the spotlight. Keen played congenial host, Robison seemed eager to play some kind of accompaniment for his pals and Snider, his face buried in shadow from a loose fitting hat, generally looked like a caged animal.

But there was simpatico. Robison matched the barbed family sagas that pop up in Keen’s music during My Brother and Me, a tune influenced not by his sibling but by a black sheep grandfather. Similarly, Snider’s popularly giddy Beer Run made direct reference to Keen’s signature renegade tune The Road Goes On Forever, a tune Keen himself was more than happy to follow with.

But Keen was rightfully awarded the evening’s last song, I’m Comin’ Home - a travelogue tune that drew inspiration from heart and hearth. Performed with a sense of Texas country longing, the stune was a reminder that even though the road still goes on forever, it eventually leads one back home.

genesis 1973-2007 live

Out to break the world record for most boxed set anthologies by an internationally established rock band is Genesis, ‘70s prog rockers-turned-‘80s pop stars. The ensemble turned out two separate boxes beginning in 1998 devoted to archival material. Starting two years ago, though, all of its studio recordings (save the 1969 debut) were remastered to 5.1 specifications and repackaged with loads of DVD treats and unreleased goodies. That series came to a conclusion last Thanksgiving with the release of 1970-1975, the collection that rightly restored the glory of the band’s early adventures with a very young and very wild Peter Gabriel.

So what is left? Well, the band’s concert recordings, for one. Thus we now have a big black box titled 1973-2007 Live. The title is something of a lie though. The box actually stops at 1992 after Phil Collins’ final tour with Genesis (chronicled on the lopsided two-disc The Way We Walk). Live Over Europe, which documented a 2007 reunion tour, isn’t included although there is a space conveniently reserved for it in the box along with a card stating the album is “available from all good retailers.”

But 1973-2007 Live isn’t the inessential indulgence suggested by such a marketing ploy. Three of its five albums wonderfully recall the band’s most fruitfully creative era.

Genesis Live and the previously unreleased Live at the Rainbow capture the primitive glory years. The liner notes claim both albums were pulled from concerts in February 1973, which doesn’t seem possible. Genesis Live relies mostly on darker material from the early ‘70s albums Trespass, Nursery Cryme and Foxtrot while Rainbow, save for the epic Supper’s Ready, is exclusively devoted to the breakthrough Selling England by the Pound.

The Gabriel era discs are wondrous stuff indeed for the die-hards. But in all honesty, the disc with the richest musical voice is actually 1977’s Seconds Out, which comes from the initial tours with Collins at the helm.

1981’s Three Sides Live is more troubling for veteran fans, as it delves more into Genesis’ MTV period (but nowhere near so as The Way We Walk). Still, autumnal relics like Me and Sarah Jane and Duchess satisfy, as do recreations of such earlier wintry delights as One for the Vine and The Fountain of Salmacis.

Again, Seconds Out is the standout here. Its mix of Gabriel-era greats (Firth of Fifth, The Cinema Show) and early Collins gems (Afterglow, Dance on a Volcano) along with some of guitarist Steve Hackett’s most sublime recorded playing and an already brilliant sound design that the 5.1 mix heightens even more, qualifies it as the greatest stage document in this mighty black box.

miley cyrus onstage last night at rupp arena. photo by herald-leader staff photographer mark cornelison.

Strolling down on a walkway last night at Rupp Arena to sing a fairly unadorned ballad called These Four Walls, Miley Cyrus appeared considerably older than her 16 years. Decked out in a short black dress and scratching a head full of thick brown locks, the still reigning teen pop queen looked as if she had already had a hard night.

In a way she had. With 18,000 fans screaming her on - at least, initially - Cyrus had, in the first half hour of a 90 minute performance, bounced between massive scaffolds that a team of 10 dancers dragged around the stage (during the show-opening Breakout), fell backward into a centerstage pit (only to return aquatically on a video screen during Bottom of the Ocean) and soared on wires near the arena roof (for Fly on the Wall).

Shoot, a night like that would wear anyone out. But such theatrics didn’t really spell out the stylistic shift Cyrus seems to be in the midst of. This was not the bright eyed Hannah Montana of just a year or two ago in many ways. Much of the evening revolved around guitar saturated tunes that Cyrus simply didn’t have the vocal pipes for. Her singing, noticeably lower and coarser than we’ve come to expect, sounded like a young but still smoky Stevie Nicks.

But here’s the thing. Imperfect as her voice was, at least she was indeed singing. This wasn’t some push button show with body mics and lip synchs substituting for an actual voice or even a production where vocals were little more than window dressing for dance moves. Sure, the show was heavily choreographed, from the grand piano that rose out of the pit to the mid-air motorcycle Cyrus took for a spin during a cover of the Joan Jett anthem I Love Rock and Roll. But the singing, warts and all, was very real.

The impression Cyrus’ production left, though, was curious. Its amped up, rock savvy and overall assertive tone certainly befits her age. But in looking around the arena last night, her audience, if anything has decreased in age. The number of 10-and-under year old girls was plentiful. So was a noticeable level of disconnect that appeared as the show progressed. When I Love Rock and Roll rolled around, Cyrus might as well have been singing in Portuguese. The kids sitting around me appeared taken briefly by the sight of flying motor bike, but found little connection with the song itself. After Cyrus rode by, they turned their attention to playing with a pair of blue glow sticks. Now that’s entertainment. 

It’s not like the audience was bored by any of this. The youthful crowd of 18,000 (minus the 30% or so that were parents) still made a mighty shriek when the lights fell. They also came alive when the radio hit Party in the U.S.A. was uncorked late into the show.

But one - namely me, an elder by any standard in last night’s crowd - was left with the notion that this very youngish crowd wasn’t always on the same page as Cyrus. Maybe they expected more of a cheery dance party. Maybe they planned on more of a safe pop exercise. They were bits of both on display last night. But mostly what was promoted was the growing pains and celebration of a teen idol clearing on the path to moving on.

The singer’s older, more liberally tattooed and Ashland-raised sibling, Trace Cyrus, opened the evening with his Los Angeles band Metro Station. Its half hour set went heavy on more expected dance pop fare like Seventeen Forever and Shake. If anything, Brother Cyrus overplayed the role of rock star to the point of sounding almost desperate when attempting to engage the crowd.

“I want everyone to bounce on this one,” he said. “C’mon. I’m serious.”

lyle lovett performing last night at the norton center for the arts' newlin hall in danville. photo by kirk schlea.

DANVILLE - “I remember some of you folks,” uttered Lyle Lovett after one of his signature tunes, Here I Am, served as a reintroduction last night at the Norton Center for the Arts.

And well he should. The famed Texas song stylist played the Danville venue a mere eight months ago. But that was when he was alone onstage with fellow musical scribe John Hiatt. Last night, the sound was considerably saucier with the swing, country and soul preferences of the singer’s Large Band igniting tunes from nine different Lovett albums. Sure, the joyous genre-jumping Lovett and his Large Band are known for in concert prevailed. But so did a plentiful number of surprises.

To begin with, this was a slightly slimmer Large Band - a mere 14 players, including the singer. The lineup featured neither a brass section nor veteran Large Band vocalist Francine Reed. But in their place were such engaging new recruits as bluegrass/new grass fiddler Luke Bulla and session guitarist Dean Parks (now on his first tour with Lovett after recording with him for 18 years). Longtime pal John Hagen on cello. and the devastatingly soulful vocal trio of Sweet Pea Atkinson, Sir Harry Bowens and Willie Green, Jr. were among the returnees.

Watching this configuration of artists in action was a continual thrill as it dug into the ebbs and flows of Lovett’s material. The Atkinson/Bowens/Green gang, for example, clucked madly like chickens - well, more like kids imitating chickens - on the new Lovett barnyard romp Farmer Brown. A few tunes later they were hammering down the vocal foundation within the darkly resolute affirmation I Will Rise Up.

The rest of the Large Band proved to be even more adaptable. At one point, Lovett trimmed it to a mere quartet singing around a single microphone. That splinter group was assigned a bluegrass-flavored saga of culinary adultery titled Pantry, one of five tunes offered from the singer’s new Natural Forces album. A moderately larger grouping took on Loretta, the extraordinary Townes Van Zandt tale of restless and reckless love which benefited highly from subtle harmonies by mandolinist Keith Sewell.

And what of Lovett himself? Well, the Long Tall Texan still ruled this merry roost by letting his clear Lone Star tenor spark the insular country inspiration of Natural Forces‘ title tune as well as the more traditional honky tonk inclinations of If I Was the Man You Wanted, a song that dated back to his 1986 debut album.

For the title track off of 2003’s My Baby Don’t Tolerate, Lovett became the resolute bluesman, singing the song’s title like a hardened mantra against a band groove that sounded less like Texas and whole lot like late ‘50s electric blues out of Chicago.

And, yes, Lovett can still spin a good yarn onstage. When introducing It’s Rock and Roll, a 30 year old tune that made its recorded debut on Natural Forces, Lovett recalled how he and the song’s co-writer, Robert Earl Keen, were trying to design music for a theatre group while the two were students at Texas A&M.

“If you went to Texas A&M, you would realize what a strange combination of words that is - ‘Texas A&M’ and ‘theatre group.’”

There were crowd favorites too - like the murderously wonderful L.A. County and the rootsy sermonette Church, which served as the 2 ¾ hour performance’s lone encore. But they were far fewer in number this time out, which was fine. By allowing music from Natural Forces, 2007’s It’s Not Big It’s Large and My Baby Don’t Tolerate to dominate the program amd with a fetchingly realigned Large Band engineering the ride, Lovett fashioned this return trip to Danville into a suitably robust, Texas-sized treat.

the man, quite literally, behind the guitar: leo kottke.

How many artists do you know that apologize to an audience for its applause?

Well, put Leo Kottke at the top of the list as of last night. After taking the stage at the Kentucky Theatre for a typically stunning performance of 6-and-12 string guitar music, the lights stayed low for a beat or two, causing the crowd to extend their vocal greeting. Hey, nobody had a gun to their heads. The patrons in the house seemed happy to whoop it up for their acoustic guitar hero.

“Sorry,” Kottke replied in the same sleepy baritone voice that colored roughly one-third of his performance repertoire. “I didn’t mean to make you clap so long.”

Right there you had a key to Kottke’s performance persona. Oh sure, his guitars sang as wildly as ever with compositions that moved along with the grace and pace of a country blues while displaying an almost symphonic denseness. But the remarks - the opening as well as all kinds of wonderfully off-centre stories peppered throughout the evening - again proved as indicative of Kottke’s crafty invention as his playing.

Last night there were stories of playing a gig near an aspirin factory, a brief comparison study of Chester Gould (the creator of Dick Tracy) and William Faulkner, Emmylou Harris’ explanation for how she was able to harmonize in the past with Kottke (”When you go flat, I go with you - just not as far”), a reflection on the first complete sentence uttered by his daughter (”Daddy, don’t sing”) and the virtues of performing at a funeral (”No one will ask you to play Pachelbel’s Canon there”). And, of course, there were the sublime non sequiturs (”That sounds like something Alphonse D’Amato might say, not me”).

These spoken interludes, as have always been the case with Kottke concerts, were not some purposeful and pre-planned stabs for aloof laughs . These fragments of color commentary - some self-effacing, some unavoidably fragmented - weren’t the tools of a character. His humor and stories were entirely his own spontaneous creations that humanized his music all the more.

And the playing? Well it was remarkable. A new, unrecorded composition titled Ants was something of a tour-de-force with extraordinary dynamics. There were shades of neo-classicism that guitar giants like Ralph Towner often bring their music along with bold displays of harmony.

Ditto for the Carla Bley meditation Jesus Maria, a tune the guitarist said he learned after watching vibraphone great Gary Burton play it in opening sets for Kottke concerts decades ago. Kottle has been performing it for years, although last night’s version managed to nicely rough up the harmonic edges a bit while keeping the tune’s contemplative beauty intact.

There were so many other delights, as well, including the wonderfully animated Snorkel, a bell-like reading of Duane Allman’s always exquisite Little Martha and the playful spree of the longtime concert favorite William Powell. And those were just the instrumentals. That same crumpled voice that welcomed the crowd brought to life the wistful Julie’s House as well as a cover of Lefty Frizzell’s Saginaw, Michigan - tunes that Harris recorded with Kottke in the early ‘80s, prompting the aforementioned remarks.

The killer though, was Everybody Lies - a tune of such placid but profound resignation that Kottke has recorded it twice on two of his finest albums (1978’s  Burnt Lips and 1989’s My Father’s Face). But last night’s version came with a sort of Halloween bonus. In another of his quietly riotous stories, Kottke confided that he modeled one of the tune’s characters on a sound tech he despised and ultimately fired from a tour.

“But in the song, I made him an attendant in an insane asylum.”

In pure Kottke fashion, though, the remark sounded affirmative and endearing. Come to think of it, the entire performance came across that way.

kenny barron. photo by carol friedman.

If you had only the initial moments of his splendid solo piano concert last night at the University of Louisville’s Comstock Hall to go by, you might have pegged jazz pianist Kenny Barron as something of a standards man. His touch was light and approachable, his tone was clean and melodic and his repertoire was full of the familiar - namely, ample inclusions from the Duke Ellington/Billy Strayhorn songbook along with such often-covered covers as How Deep is the Ocean, Love Walked In and Body and Soul. And truth be told, if the performance delved no deeper than that, the evening would have still wound up in the win column.

There was such a subtle punctuation to Barron’s playing, as in the rumble of left hand blues in Strayhorn’s Isfahon and the even gentler right hand sweeps during Melancholia (part of a four song Ellington/Strayhorn medley) that the soulfulness inherent in the tunes was effortlessly enhanced.

But Barron proved a wily player, as well. You don’t clock time with greats like Freddie Hubbard and Stanley Turrentine on top of a famed five year stint in the mid ‘60s with Dizzy Gillespie and not pick up a few tricks. On the original New York Attitude, Barron let loose with runs that, in the tune’s madder moments, possessed the danger level of a cab ride through Midtown Manhattan. But Calypso, another Barron composition, favored dynamics over tension for a bright, lyrical, tropically inspired bounce.

As Barron is deeply versed in the music of Thelonious Monk (he is a co-founder of the great Monk tribute ensemble Sphere), there was also room in the performance for the modal mischief and overt playfulness of Well You Needn’t. But the gems of the night were two other Barron works - the decades old Lullaby and a tribute to South African pianist Abdullah Ibrahim titled Song for Abdullah. Within their sparsely designed frameworks, Barron created passages of unhurried lyrical warmth balanced by the solemnity of a hymn.

Neither could be classified a standard. Yet. But the unforced elegance, soulful charm and emotive beauty that defined the performance suggested another learned pianist a few decades down the pike may be exploring Barron’s music with the same reverence he afforded the Ellington generation last night.

joe henry. photo by lauren dukoff.

Confessing that he normally doesn’t perform in an unaccompanied setting, producer/song stylist Joe Henry vowed last night at the 930 Art Center in Louisville to play assorted songs of love, sex and death  “almost all in minor key.” But even with only two well worn Gibson acoustic guitars, an upright piano and nine strategically placed lamps as onstage allies, the evocative nature of Henry’s music was in no way shortchanged.

Sure, half the beauty of his recordings are the sonic fortresses - the ambient arrangements, the trip-hop grooves - that surround the atmospheric nature of the songs. But the combination of the pin-drop-quiet the 930 audience afforded the concert and the intimate clarity that resulted brought two often overlooked attributes of Henry’s music to the surface.

The first, of course, were the lyrics. Sometimes disparaging, often mysterious and, in more than a few instances, strangely sunny - they were all pushed to the forefront instead of serving as another element of the ambience. In this instance, no song sounded more involving or human than the title tune to what remains Henry’s finest album, 2001’s Scar. Served as a show-closing encore, the confessional grace in this hesitant but hopeful love song simply glowed with only a lone acoustic guitar melody as a backdrop.

The performance’s other great rediscovery was Henry’s singing. Instead of the purposely corrosive vocals that surface on his recordings, a crisp, patiently paced folk/pop voice liberated self-described “opaque” songs like Channel (one of five tunes pulled from the new Blood From Stars album). “Every fuzzy word I send returns a finer blade,” Henry sang before quoting the title to one of Van Morrison’s most mercurial songs You Don’t Pull No Punches But You Don’t Push the River.

Insightful as the performance was, it didn’t diffuse the wonder of Henry’s finest works, from the revolution-from-a-child’s-eye slant of This Afternoon to the romantic inscrutability of Progress of Love. Nor did it make apologies for past successes that slipped away. Henry summed up the differences between his Scar song Stop and the version that sister-in-law Madonna took to the Top 5 (as the re-titled Don’t Tell Me) with little regret.

“I recorded my version as a tango. She recorded her version as a hit.” With that, Henry let loose with the tango version in all its solo, unplugged glory.