ALBUM REVIEWS
DAN WILSON Re-Covered Big Deal Media
Formerly of Trip Shakespeare and Semisonic, the Minnesota-born Dan Wilson has collaborated with an array of musicians. On Re-Covered, he performs his songs made famous by a dozen artists including Adele (Someone Like You), John Legend (You and I), Dixie Chicks (Not Ready to Make Nice), Chris Stapleton (When The Stars Come Out) and Taylor Swift (Treacherous).
Leaving the oldest song for last — the only one here Wilson wrote alone — the album ends with Semisonic’s Closing Time, its gentleness making it easier to see how it was meant to be about a baby’s birth.
Recorded mostly in a weeklong session co-helmed by producer Mike Viola and backed by musicians including drummer Pete Thomas, Re-Covered has sufficient flourishes to avoid sounding like a collection of demos that let the songwriting stand on its own plentiful merits.
THE ISLEY BROTHERS & SANTANA Power of Peace Sony Legacy
Ronald and Ernie Isley team up with Carlos Santana on the vigorous Power of Peace, putting their stamp on mostly spiritually inclined songs from the likes of Marvin Gaye, Billie Holiday, Burt Bacharach and Hal David, and Swamp Dogg.
Ronald Isley guested on Santana IV, the 2016 album that reunited most of the band’s original lineup, and the collaboration continues here, with Santana’s current band providing the foundations and Ernie Isley’s guitar pyrotechnics proving a harmonious foil for the bandleader.
Versions of The Impressions’ Gypsy Woman, a pair of songs from The Chamber Brothers, Gaye’s Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology) and Eddie Kendricks’s Body Talk stick close to the originals, sometimes adding an excessive dose of intensity.
SHERMAN HOLMES
The Sherman Holmes Project: The Richmond Sessions M.C. Records
The Richmond Sessions is the debut album by Sherman Holmes, but the 77-year-old singer and bassist is no neophyte.
The Holmes Brothers were a great American band, alternating between gospel, R&B, soul and blues, while reimagining tunes from Tom Waits, Cheap Trick and Bob Marley both radically and triumphantly.
Drummer Popsy Dixon and guitarist Wendell Holmes died in 2015, and Sherman Holmes returns to his family and band’s Virginia roots for The Richmond Sessions.
Stirring harmonies were a Holmes Brothers trademark, and The Ingramettes lay a foundation for Holmes on two Ralph Stanley’s bluegrass classics — I’ve Just Seen the Rock of Ages and White Dove — as well as Ben Harper’s Homeless Child, covered by The Holmes Brothers in 2001. Another great track: a dobro-inthe-swamp take on Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Green River.