Keef’s on a roll with the blues
Keith Richards: Crosseyed Heart (Virgin EMI)
Verdict: Sprawling but spirited
David Gilmour: Rattle That Lock (Sony Music)
Verdict: Pristine but patchy
ROCK ’ n’ roll survivors don’t come any more doughty or grizzled than Keith Richards. The piratical Rolling Stones guitarist (right) is still going strong after overcoming heroin addiction, brushes with the law and a bizarre head injury sustained falling out of a coconut tree in Fiji nine years ago.
Like the Mississippi bluesmen whose l egacy he still reveres, the raffish 71-year- old will probably rock until he drops, and this sprawling solo effort, his first in more than 20 years, is testimony to his enduring enthusiasm. Old-fashioned and unpretentious, it could have been made at any time over the past 40 years.
Recorded with his ‘ other’ group, the X-Pensive Winos, Crosseyed Heart takes almost an hour to amble through a string of loose-limbed rock, blues and reggae tunes. Judicious editing would have made it more easily digestible, but that would hardly chime with Keith’s unfettered outlook.
Helping out are drummer Steve Jordan, a long-term associate, and jazz singer Norah Jones, whose silky vocals dovetail well with Keith’s husky growl on Illusion. Saxophonist Bobby Keys (who played the solo on 1971’s Brown Sugar) contributed shortly before his death last December.
Rolling Stones fans will enjoy raunchy rockers Heartstopper, Something For Nothing and Trouble, although one can’t help but wonder how these tracks might have sounded with Mick Jagger’s posturing presence at the helm.
Keith’s debt to the blues shines through on an affectionate cover of Lead Belly’s folky waltz Goodnight Irene, while his lifelong admiration for Jamaican music gets an airing on Love Overdue, originally by reggae crooner Gregory Isaacs.
As a vocalist, he is most convincing on the ballads. Lover’s Plea is a soulful high point, and the throaty tone of Robbed Blind echoes Bob Dylan and Tom Waits: ‘ The cops, you know, I can’t involve them,’ he barks, with a hint of outlaw menace. ‘ God knows what they might find.’
The guitar work, as befits one of rock’s finest, is excellent. There are no riffs here to match those on Satisfaction or Gimme Shelter, but his playing has a natural sensitivity and effortless grace that’s true to his rock ’n’ roll spirit.
PINK FLOYD’S David Gilmour is another British rock legend to be saluted by U. S. magazine Rolling Stone’s list of all-time guitar greats — he was ranked 14th; Richards fourth. And his latest solo album shows why: his signature sound is clean, fluent and instantly identifiable — and it dominates Rattle That Lock.
Exploring a series of everyday thoughts and emotions, the record is divided between elegiac instrumentals and tighter pop songs with lyrics by Gilmour’s novelist wife Polly Samson. It revisits the slow-burning, dreamy feel that underpinned Pink Floyd’s The Endless River last year.
Among the best moments are a title track enhanced by a choir and built around the four-note motif that precedes announcements at French railway stations.
On this, and the song Today, Gilmour reprises the funky tone he had on Another Brick In The Wall.
Elsewhere, In Any Tongue features dramatic orchestration and a pristine solo. David Crosby and Graham Nash add soft harmonies on A Boat Lies Waiting.
But, while Gilmour’s playing is bright and forceful , jazzy interludes such as The Girl In The yellow Dress leave this album sounding somewhat disjointed.