The Musical Box

Have the immensely rhythmic and meditative sounds of the Saharan-bred Tureg people become the newest voices of global pop? Apparently so, if the textured, unyielding and powerfully infectious guitar grooves summoned by Niger native Omara “Bombino” Moetar on his new album, Nomad, are any indication.

The Turegs have long been nomads, hence the album title. In Bombino’s case, exiled life in the desert was initiated by numerous protests with the Niger government. But exposure over the years to such decidedly non-Tureg guitarists as Jimi Hendrix and Mark Knopfler also triggered a taste for a wider instrumental vocabulary.

Essentially unknown outside the Sahara before 2009, Bombino eventually came to the attention of Dan Auerbach. The Black Keys guitarist invited the Tureg artist and his band to Nashville to record Nomad. Fans of tradition-minded world beat and Afro-pop music had every right to be wary of such dislocation. After all, could any artistic  environment be more radically removed from the African desert than Nashville?

But Auerbach is respectful of the sounds, themes and song structures in Bombino’s music. Unlike his production work on Locked Down, last year’s outstanding comeback album for Dr. John, Auerbach takes a largely hands-off approach on Nomad. He stacks layer upon layer of Bombino’s guitar lines to create a huge streamlined groove that propels the album-opening Amidinine, the darting percussive strut of Adinat and the arid blues chant Zigzan.

There are no prolonged solos, aside from the ones that steer and service the rhythms. Similarly, the Americanized touches – specifically, the keyboard colors of Bobby Emmett and the steel guitar support of Russ Pahl, both of which bolster the sunny, soul saturated flow of Aman – are largely ornamental. It is always the massive, chiming guitar sound that leads Nomad’s inviting charge.

Auerbach’s only direct instrumental contribution is the fairly innocuous bass guitar he plays on Niamey Jam. But he very much leaves his print on the album. Nomad steers away from the sort of global dance-floor grind that has derailed recordings by world music great Angelique Kidjo, but Auerbach greases Nomad’s desert groove ever so slightly in a way that will probably make the music inviting to fans of vintage American psychedelia and some of today’s more organically inclined jam bands.

Nomad’s liner notes contain English translations to lyrics that reveal the political, personal and spiritual inspirations behind the album’s 11 songs, although the variances of timbre in Bombino’s chant-like singing suggest which emotional intent is at work. In the end, though, the groove commands all. And even though he has a Black Key in his corner, Bombino is at the heart of an intoxicating desert sound that isn’t likely to remain foreign for long.

Kentucky Headhunters: Doug Phelps, Fred Young, Greg Martin and Richard Young.

In preparing for tonight’s induction into the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame, the Kentucky HeadHunters knew they were still a few steps behind a formative, homegrown inspiration.

“We took our families up to the Hall of Fame a while back,” said HeadHunters co-guitarist and co-founder Richard Young. “We already had a pretty cool little booth there. But to be honest with you, Exile had a magnificent booth. We knew we were not going to be able to outdo them. Let’s just say they had some pretty trendy outfits over the past 50 years.”

As luck would have it, Exile will be inducted into Hall of Fame alongside the HeadHunters tonight. One would think this would be the ideal time for Young to crow about the “electric barnyard” music that defined HeadHunters hits like Dumas Walker and the rockish honky-tonk transformations of such traditionally minded classics as Oh Lonesome Me and Walk Softly on this Heart of Mine, but the guitarist can’t suppress the thrill of being honored on equal terms with Exile, the Kentucky pop, rock and country ensemble that Young, brother/drummer Fred Young and guitarist Greg Martin championed as teens coming of musical age in Metcalfe County. Bassist/singer Doug Phelps completes the HeadHunters lineup.

“Seeing Exile back then was the closest thing you could get to seeing the Rolling Stones,” Young said. “We paid five bucks to see the band and drink beer. We didn’t have a whole lot of outlets for modern music when we were growing up. If we didn’t see them on The Ed Sullivan Show or Hullabaloo or some of those TV shows, it was hard to find that music.

“Greg’s brother lived in Louisville. He was older, and Greg would go up and stay with him and bring back these slews of albums – Cream and Moby Grape and all these things. So we were very fortunate to have that outlet.”

There was another means of experiencing the daring new pop music of the late ’60s for Young and his pals. But the location and its hosts could were equally unlikely rock ’n’ roll representatives.

“We had this place in Glasgow called Rice’s Radio and TV Service,” Young said. “Mr. and Mrs. Ellis Rice, who ran it, were some Jewish folks that had lived in New York but moved down to Kentucky. Well, every Saturday, we couldn’t wait to go over there. He had all these great Fender guitars hanging up and amplifiers. Mrs. Rice, on her counter, had one of these old time gray turntables. She turned us on to Jimi Hendrix’s Purple Haze. Can you imagine a middle-age woman turning a bunch of kids onto Purple Haze? She would say, ‘I’ve got this great new album from England by this band called The Jimi Hendrix Experience.’ So naturally, she sold us a copy of it.

“The first time I ever heard Exile was when I went in there one Saturday and Mrs. Rice played this great single. She said, ‘Boys, you’ve got to play close attention. Finally, we have a band from Kentucky that’s stirring up some dust.’ And it was Exile. I was maybe 14 at the time.

“So we latched on to Exile because they were kind of like our big brothers from the state. They made us hopeful that we could one day do what they did and have a career in music. We always looked up to them. So you’ve got to know this is a double whammy for us. Not only are we going into the Hall of Fame; we’re going in with some of our heroes.”

The 2013 Kentucky Music Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony will held at 6 p.m. Friday at the Lexington Convention Center. The event is sold out.

Few pop artists saw a career of greater promise meet such merciless commercial disappointment as Gene Clark. After becoming what many consider the definitive songwriting voice of The Byrds, he set course on a solo career that never took flight. The music that followed, including collaborations with banjo legend Doug Dillard, was often extraordinary. But Clark, who died in 1991, never came close to matching the glories of his commercial heyday with The Byrds.

Among the lost treasures of Clark’s post-Byrds work was his first proper solo album, a 1971 record released domestically simply as Gene Clark. Overseas, it bore the title White Light. A mix of folkish reflection and country contentment, it remains the most artfully reserved and satisfying record that Clark made outside The Byrds. Aside from a few pockets of devout fans, no one paid much attention to it.

In what has to be one of pop music’s most unanticipated postscripts, we now have the newly released Here Tonight, a collection of 12 beautifully recorded (and preserved) demo recordings that Clark cut in preparation for White Light. As stirring as Clark’s overlooked masterpiece was, Here Tonight might just go down as the better work.

This demo collection is a calm set of solo acoustic blueprints, with Clark accompanying himself on guitar and harmonica. The song selection doesn’t replicate White Light entirely. Opening Day and Winter In, for instance, are rarities that are very much in keeping with the album’s warm, reserved attitude. But they surfaced (in fully produced form) on a 2002 reissue of White Light. Likewise, Here Tonight’s title tune was reshaped into a bit of cosmic country fun by The Flying Burrito Brothers on a 1973 anthology. Similarly, three tunes from the finished White Light aren’t among the “newly discovered” demos on this new release.

But Here Tonight is a gorgeous foreshadowing of the neo-country folk fashioned by guitarist/producer Jesse Ed Davis on White Light. The emotional cast of these demos is almost serene. Intentionally unassuming in construction (as they were never intended for release in this form), these recordings are a total about-face from The Byrds’ jangly pop or even the progressive country/bluegrass summits with Dillard.

There are strong references in style and wordplay to vintage Bob Dylan in Please Mr. Freud and Jimmy Christ (neither of which made it onto White Light), but songs like Because of You and the exquisite With Tomorrow rank as sterling examples of Clark’s singing.

Like all of Here Tonight, the songs are more than mere postcards from a forgotten corner of Americana past. They form what might be the greatest musical adventure in the career of a grounded Byrd. What a remarkable discovery for any generation.

Concerto competition winners Chase Miller, Rui Li and Leigh Dixon. Herald-Leader photo by Matt Goins.

The result of a competition is usually an award – a prize that distinguishes the winner’s work from the equally driven contributions of their peers.

What comes at the end of the annual Concerto Competition held in the University of Kentucky Symphony Orchestra is a different kind of award. In essence, the prize is a spotlight. The winner of this year’s competition will perform as featured soloist at the orchestra’s Friday concert at the Singletary Center for the Arts.

“The players often have a chance to show their stuff when they have solos in one of the symphonic works we perform,” said UK Symphony music director and conductor John Nardolillo. “But it’s something extra special for them to walk out as the featured soloist of the evening.”

This year’s competition commenced in January with a field of orchestra contestants facing a panel of judges made up of regional artists that included Robert Trevino, associate conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.

“The judges were looking for the overall quality of the presentation,” Nardolillo said. “In other words, have they mastered their instrument technically? Were they exquisitely well prepared on this piece of music? Have they thought through what the artistic ideas were in the piece? Did they make a compelling and interesting musical argument to their audience? So it was not just a question of ‘Did they play all the right notes?’ but ‘Did they have something to say within the music?’

Competition winner Rui Li, a doctorate student/trumpeter from Inner Mongolia, viewed the competition in almost narrative terms.

“The most important thing for me was to choose a piece that had a story to tell,” said Li, whose competition piece, Richard Peaslee’s Nightsongs, will be part of tonight’s program along with Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No.5 in D Minor, Op.47 and Leonard Bernstein’s Overture to Candide.

“Everyone deserves to play with the orchestra. So to win, it comes down who has a story that they are ready to share. Of course, every day you have to devote a lot of time to work on fundamentals and practice. For the concerto competition, you have to know the piece really well, know the composer and know some of his other pieces and discover a really, really strong story behind it.”

Having already has earned degrees in economics and international politics in China, Li also made himself visible outside the orchestra – and outside of classical repertoire – over the winter by performing at an Outside the Spotlight concert alongside New York free jazz trumpeter Peter Evans. So how does jazz that borders on the avant garde find common ground with concertos and symphonies?

“In Inner Mongolia, the music is all in an aural tradition,” Li said. “To play written music, especially orchestra music, the composer and conductor have a certain expectation of what is the perfect orchestra sound. You may be playing in different halls for different audiences, but still there is a goal.”

While the Concerto Competition often awards only one winner, the judging panel sometimes awards a second prize if they feel there is another deserving winner and if the UK Orchestra’s concert program can accommodate another soloist. This year, there is a bonus. The second winner is a duo that teamed to perform a double concerto.

Leigh Dixon, a senior in music performance from Louisville on viola, and Chase Miller, a senior from Stanford in music education on clarinet, have been playing together for two years. They began practicing and studying their competition selection, Max Bruch’s Double Concerto for Clarinet and Viola in E Minor, Op.88, in August. It will also be featured in tonight’s concert.

“When we started working on it, we had weekly coachings,” Dixon said. “Then outside of that, we practiced all the time with each other.”

“The fact that we’ve been playing together for so long means we know each other’s playing inside and out,” Miller added. “So we weren’t really looking at this as a competition as much another performance together. Besides that, I’m pretty sure this is the first double concerto that has ever won the competition.”

“All three are fantastic players,” Nardolillo said of the winners. “They are all playing on a professional level. They are all beautifully prepared. They are all presenting an artist’s interpretation, not a student interpretation. And they have all been longtime members of the orchestra and tremendous contributors. So I’m thrilled they are going to be soloists for us.”

The University of Kentucky Symphony Orchestra performs at 7:30 p.m. March 29

at the Singletary Center for the Arts. Admission is free. Call (859) 257-4929.

Branford Marsalis Quartet: pianist Joey Calderazzo, bassist Eric Revis, saxophonist Branford Marsalis and drummer Justin Faulkner.  Photo by Eric Ryan Anderson.

Purely in terms of social standing, Justin Faulkner knew exactly where he stood when joining the Branford Marsalis Quartet.

For instance, he knew he was teaming with one of the most prestigious jazz combos in the country. But given the fact that the band had just parted ways with its longstanding drummer, Jeff “Tain” Watts, Faulkner was also aware it was experiencing its first personnel shift in over a decade. And since he signed as the quartet’s new drummer on his 18^th birthday, he was throwing himself in with a pack of jazz pros that were over twice his age.

Adjusting to all of that simply proved to be the latest step in Faulkner’s rapid maturation as a professional musician. But the music – the volcanically intense jazz that has long been a signature of the Marsalis Quartet? That was an altogether different matter.

“Being around the guys in the band was actually pretty easy because they treated me as an equal,” said Faulkner, 21, who will perform tonight with the Marsalis Quartet at the EKU Center for the Arts. “There has never been an underlying factor of ‘Oh, he’s a kid. Let’s treat him like a child.’ From day one, they said, ‘OK, listen. This is manhood now. You have to step up and be accountable for all of your actions and for all of the things you don’t do but should be doing.’ So in terms of camaraderie, it’s always been really easy to get along with the guys.

“Now in terms of music, that was a horse of a different color completely. I mean, I had never played music that intense in my life. There is an intensity at work that I feel not a lot of people really understand. Branford understands the intensity of the John Coltrane Quartet. He understands the intensity of the Count Basie Band. He brings those elements and more to the stage.

“To be honest with you, after the first song of my first gig, I thought I was going to pass out. I was going, ‘OK. That’s the gig, right?’ And Branford was like, ‘No, man. We have six or seven songs left.’ I mean, I was soaking wet. I was sitting there hyperventilating. I drank, it must have been, four or five bottles of water. I was terrified.”

While the Philadelphia native held great respect for the years his new bandmates – saxophonist Marsalis, pianist Joey Calderazzo and bassist Eric Revis had played together (“They had been playing almost as long as I’d been alive”), Faulkner soon came to realize they were all also still students of the music.

“The day that I joined the band, they said, ‘OK, here is a ton of music you have to learn.’ They gave me records upon records – at least 100 gigabytes of records. And I’m still figuring those records out. But the beautiful thing is they are too. Even though these guys are masters in their own right, everyday is a new chapter for them. Everyone is still exploring the music. They are exploring the depth of emotion that goes into the music. And that’s inspiring for me.

“Branford says all the time, ‘The day I’m no longer a student of the music is the day that I should probably stop.’ Look, my first jazz concert was the Branford Marsalis Quartet. That was when I was in fifth grade. So it was really important for me to figure out what my role was in the band.”

Several shades of that role are revealed on Faulkner’s recording debut with the Marsalis Quartet, 2012’s unceremoniously titled Four MFs Playin’ Tunes. There he propels the joyously combustible combo swing of Calderazzo’s The Mighty Sword, glides gently under Marsalis’ delicately mischievous soprano sax lead on Revis’ Maestra and conjures a New Orleans groove that smooths out into vigorous bop on the Thelonious Monk gem Teo.

“Branford’s philosophy is that he wants to get to the soul of the music in two takes,” the drummer said. “And if you don’t, well, that’s what’s going on the record. Once you start doing four, five, six, seven takes, you’re just chasing your tail. As much of the music as you’re going to get will happen in the first two takes.

“I’ve done other recording sessions where we spent a week in the studio and it was great. It was a different experience. But doing just a few takes almost puts a sense of urgency in you where you have to realize that, ‘OK, I only have two times to actually figure this song out, so let me see what the total arc of the song is. Working that way has been a very, very interesting experience.”

Branford Marsalis Quartet performs at 8 tonight at the EKU Center for the Arts, 521 Lancaster Ave. in Richmond. Tickets are $50-$60. Call (859) 622-7469 or go to EKUcenter.com

Doyle Lawson

Ahoy, bluegrass mates. The WoodSongs Old-Time Radio Hour will swap one classic string band for another at its Feb. 25 taping at the Lyric Theatre. Due to an illness within the band, Russell Moore and IIIrd Tyme Out are postponing. But look at who is the replacement – Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver, the very ensemble whose early alumni members formed IIIrd Tyme Out in the first place.

The multi-stylistic Northeastern pop troupe Lake Street Dive will also perform on Monday’s bill.

For reservations, call (859) 252-8888.

The teaming of Brit folk/rock impresario Richard Thompson and Americana journeyman Buddy Miller on the former’s new album, Electric, is an alliance as obvious as it is overdue.

Since his days with the vanguard British troupe Fairport Convention, Thompson has forged  new songs and sounds inspired by the roots music of his homeland. In the process, he has become a guitarist and songwriter of great emotive sensitivity and severity. Miller has done pretty much the same thing on this these shores with vintage country music, although he is as visible today as a producer as he is a guitarist and composer.

That said, Electric should not be viewed as some kind of cross-continental summit or an encroachment of Thompson’s hearty British inspiration upon more domestic influences. In short, no one is not out to make a country record here.

What Miller provides are spacious yet concise sonic settings (all recorded in analogue, by the way) for Thompson’s songs. You can hear that at once in the album-opening Stony Ground as the percussive chatter of drummer Michael Jerome and an almost choral vocal moan gives way to the typically searing electric stride of Thompson’s guitar work.

Calling the record Electric might be somewhat beside the point, though. Sure, we get joyous torrents of Thompson’s wiry playing in solos that erupt out of the amplified folk dance Sally B, the modestly Americanized shimmer of Good Things Happen To Bad People and the album’s true wild card – a blast of surf-style groove called Straight and Narrow. But there are equally striking acoustic moments amid Electric’s amplified adventures. It is within those tales that the depth and detail of Thompson’s songwriting is best displayed.

Another Small Thing in Her Favor is the latest entry of Thompson’s rogues gallery of love-gone-wrong songs, depicting a sense of heartbreak that is quietly devastating and not in the least bit sentimental (“She’ll find some other poor pilgrim who’s braver”).

Electric’s two best acoustic reveries close the album. The Snow Goose is vintage Thompson: stark, poetic and disquieting (“Northern winds will cut you, northern girls will gut you; leave you cold and empty like a fish on the slab”). Mournful harmonies from Alison Krauss further heighten the song’s dark beauty.

But love offers salvation on Saving the Good Stuff for You. Accented by the violin of Nashville session great Stuart Duncan, the song is a waltz that tempers festering regret (“I’m glad that you never knew me when I was out of control”) with redemptive purpose (“I got it all out of my system; my heart, it is tested and true”).

In this instance, the music is all relaxed and unplugged. But the sentiments? They couldn’t be more electric.

victor wooten.

Being one of the most celebrated electric bass guitarists of his day just wasn’t enough for Victor Wooten. So when it came to marketing his music, he also became something of a diplomat.

The Grammy winning instrumentalist and co-founding member of Bela Fleck and the Flecktones had a dream when it came to his solo career. He wanted to release two albums simultaneously – as in the very same day. But that wasn’t all. Wooten, in the spirit of true musical community, also envisioned issuing the works on different record labels.

“I like doing things that bring people together and make people work together,” said Wooten, who will headline tonight’s taping of the WoodSongs Old-Time Radio. “In most cases, if you take two different companies that are in the same field that produce the same product, they usually avoid each other. They look at each other as competition. They definitely don’t work together. So, I thought, ‘Man, if I could find two companies that could release a different record the same day, it would make a statement. It would be like, ‘Look, we’re working together to support music and to support an artist.’

“And I couldn’t do it. But the idea never left me.”

Undaunted by the perhaps idealistic notion that competing record labels might operate in harmony, Wooten found another way to realize his double record dream. But the opportunity came about almost by accident.

Now an independent artist recording for his own Vix label, Wooten set his sights last year on fashioning an album that touched on the shades of funk, fusion, pop and soul that made up the bulk of his catalogue outside of the Flecktones. But he wanted to give his then-new project a distinct air by adding a rotating lineup of female vocalists. The roster would be vast, running from the noted singer and bassist Me’shell Ndegeocello to his 15 year old daughter, Kaila Wooten.

During the album’s planning stages, father Wooten prepared demo-style recordings so the invited singers could plot their vocal performance and, if they so chose, pen their own lyrics. But the bassist wound up taking a liking to these instrumental tracks as they were. That’s when the idea of issuing two albums at once was reborn. And with Wooten working as his own label CEO, who was to say no?

So last September, Vix Records issued Words and Tones, the vocal-inspired album, alongside Sword and Stone, its instrumentally inclined counterpart.

“Since I’ve become my own record label, I figured I can release whatever I want when I want how I want,” Wooten said. “I had planned on only doing one record, which was going to be a really mellow, musical record with female vocalists. It didn’t totally turn out that way, but I still focused on the vocalists.

“As I was preparing the music to send to the vocalists, I would put melodies on these songs and realized, ‘Wow. I like these songs as instrumentals.’ That’s when I rekindled the idea and said, ‘Hey, how about doing two versions?’ And that’s how it came about, by taking some of those songs and finding two different expressions for them as they came out.”

With the Flecktones on hiatus for the foreseeable future, Wooten toured extensively behind his two new albums throughout the fall. But his WoodSongs outing will be different. The bassist will essentially use his family – wife Holly and their four children – as his backing ensemble.

The concept of family bands is nothing new to Wooten. He has regularly worked with his siblings on his solo recordings. In addition, brother/percussionist Roy “Futureman” Wooten has also served as a fellow Flecktone throughout the band’s 25 year history.

One of the vocal tunes on Words and Tones, titled Heaven, offers perhaps the ultimate family reunion with contributions from over a dozen different Wootens.

 “I knew what I wanted Heaven to be about,” Wooten said. “I saw it, really, as a tribute to our relatives that have passed on before us. And I wanted to find a way of making that idea feel good instead of sad. My mom always said, ‘Ain’t none of us getting out of here alive,’ which leads to the awareness of, ‘Hey, we’re all going to die at some point, so let’s deal with it now.’ It’s not important about when or how we’re going to die. It’s more about when and how we choose to live. So I wanted to do a song that kind of talked about death but made it groove, made something you could dance to.’

“The idea was to have as many of my living relatives as possible sing the song. So I was able to get cousins, aunts and, of course, my brothers, my wife and my kids. Eventually, I ended up getting my father’s voice, my mother’s voice and my (saxophonist) brother Rudy. He just passed away. I was able to get him on there, too.

“It just turned into a fun, touching song for me and for all of my relatives.”

Victor Wooten performs at 7 tonight at the WoodSongs Old-Time Radio Hour. Tickets are $15. Call (859) 252-8888 or got to www.woodsongs.com.

When the word Resume gets appropriated as the title of a popular music recording, it usually indicates the work at hand is an anthology of some kind – an overview or, at least, an estimation of an artist’s past work and worth.

In essence, that definition holds true for a fascinating new instrumental album by the acclaimed Stuttgart born bassist Eberhard Weber. The record indeed collects musical fragments of the past. But none are familiar or qualify even remotely as “hits.” One of the defining artists of the European-bred “ECM sound” that combines improvisational invention with spacious and highly impressionistic ambience, Weber has collected a series of 12 bass interludes performed during 17 years worth of European concerts as a member of the Jan Garbarek Group. Resume then edits and remixes these passages into near cinematic compositions that place the wintry, Nordic-flavored atmospherics that dominated early ECM records alongside more intimate, folk-enhanced settings.

It’s important to keep in mind that Resume is not a solo bass recording. There are typically otherworldly contributions by Garbarek on tenor and soprano saxophone and selje flute along with earthier percussive colors from Michael DiPasqua. Weber dominates, though, having built this music from the ground up on five-string electric double bass before fleshing it out onstage over the years with a variety of echo, reverb and delay effects. Keyboards were also employed to further orchestrate the music.

As such, the album-opening Liezen (the tunes are all named after the cities these blueprint bass experiments were recorded in) oozes in like late afternoon clouds with the spontaneously dubbed solos creating fascinating musical monologues. Amsterdam works in percussion for a punctuated ballet of sorts before the bass takes off at a modest gallop. Then on Bath, the bass sings over bowed counterpoint playing as a keyboard melody is repeated like a distant mantra. The resulting music is simultaneously fanciful and, as the piece progresses, pastoral.

But the highlight is Wolfsburg, where the rich definition of Weber’s bass work stands alone until brief showers of keyboards and piano provide a lovely twilight feel.                                                                                                                                                                               There is perhaps an ulterior motive for fashioning the present day compositions of Resume out of previously recorded improvisations. Weber suffered a stroke while on tour with Garbarek in 2007. Partial left hand paralysis has left him unable to play in recent years. But where the fingers shut down, the intellect takes over. As such, Resume’s sense of musical reinvention is remarkable. But don’t dwell too greatly on the recording’s construction process. Instead, simply bask in the warm, wintry glow of music that discovers a beguiling new place for the bass.

Lucinda Williams.

Nearly 15 years after its release, the chorus to Joy – the most pivotal track of Lucinda Williams’ most essential album, Car Wheels on a Gravel Road – remains the single most potent and succinct lyric in a catalog filled with brilliant songs of love, loss, betrayal and, on occasion, redemption. “You took my joy. I want it back.” Kind of says it all, doesn’t it?

On Thursday night at Louisville’s KCD Theatre, Williams seriously got her joy back. That’s not to say her live shows have ever been as desolate as her songs. But with a sold out audience before her and a 60^th birthday barely 24 hours away, the acclaimed Americana songstress cut loose.

During the closing minutes of a two-hour performance aided by guitarist Doug Pettibone, Williams invited the show-opening Kenneth Brian Band (a fine and highly literate indie country-rock troupe from Alabama) onstage and tore into Get Right with God, prompting a modest tent revival clap-a-long and a finale where the singer put down her guitar and simply danced to the groove.

Dancing the night away in front of your audience as you’re about to turn the big 6-0. Now that’s what you call getting your joy back.

Of course, there were all kinds of other delights packed into the show, including a pair of achingly lovely tunes from 2003’s World Without Tears album (the show-opening title track and Over Time), a wonderful vocal duet version with Pettibone of Jailhouse Tears packed with exquisitely profane humor, a trio of unrecorded new songs highlighted the country fried Bitter Memory (with Pettibone tastefully working in licks from the Chuck Berry classic Memphis) and a sterling impromptu cover of the Tammy Wynette hit Apartment #9 that boasted the same stark emotive cast as Williams’ own songs.

Joy was there, too, but it steered closer to the stripped-down strident version featured on the new West of Memphis soundtrack than the rockish Car Wheels original. The intent was unchanged, though. Last night, Joy remained a boozy, bruised blast of defiance that sounded, as did all of this splendid performance, positively youthful.