Alison Krauss sings up a storm on Windy City
AAlison Krauss Windy City Capitol
For her first solo album in more than a decade, singer/fiddler Alison Krauss embraces timeless country music in a retro/vintage-inspired collection of country and bluegrass classics representing another wonderful collaboration, this time with producer Buddy Cannon and a number of superb musicians.
Krauss’ distinctive voice travels across genres with intelligence, beauty and emotion. She is a savvy musician steeped in bluegrass, country, folk and pop. Her albums — often with her band, Union Station — can feel like their own unique genres, particularly the 2007 collaboration with Robert Plant and producer T Bone Burnett, Raising Sand.
Windy City feels intimate and personal. Krauss’ voice inhabits a song in a heartfelt way few singers can. It is as though she taps what you’ve felt or are feeling; add a keen sense of longing and you have a voice that connects on a soul-stirring level. She is a singer of uncommon musical and emotional depth.
The intensely sad Brenda Lee ballad “All Alone Am I” is devastating, while her approach to Willie Nelson’s “I Never Cared for You” is a profound, rather bleak reflection on loss. She pays homage to bluegrass greats the Osborne Brothers on the stunning title song.
Musicianship is first-rate, with Ron Block and Barry Bales from Union Station; her frequent collaborator in Union Station and elsewhere, Dan Tyminski; singers
Jamey Johnson and Hank Williams Jr., and others.
Hot tracks: “All Alone Am I,” “I Never Cared for You,” “Windy City,” Roger Miller’s “River in the Rain” — ELLIS WIDNER Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
A-Migos CULTURE Quality Control/300
When Atlanta creator Donald Glover shouted out Migos — the Georgian, experimental hip-hop trio — during his win at the Golden Globes in January, it was the first time many heard the name. Mainstream anonymity didn’t last long, as Migos’ spare “Bad and Boujee,” complete with weird
breathy shooshes and mentions from Philly’s Lil Uzi Ver, hit Billboard’s No. 1 spot before month’s end. For rap aficionados, however, Migos has been generating clever, oddball tracks with a genuine knack for the contagious since 2013’s “Versace.”
For Migos’ mostly somber, full-length second effort, rappers Quavo (the quavering floaty MC), Offset (the edgy one), and Takeoff (the bass voice) have refined the jagged tips and jarring flips of 2015’s Yung Rich Nation without losing its cranky, fringy funk. On the Auto-Tuned “Get Right
Witcha” and “T-Shirt,” the trio’s texts flow through one another. Ruminative pianos stay Satie-still (“Brown Paper Bag”) or grow grand on the theatrically orchestrated “Deadz” and “Big on Big.” Yet Migos gets bigger still with what is 2017’s first amazing album, whose memory should linger into 2018 and beyond.
Hot tracks: “T-Shirt,” “Brown Paper Back,” “Deadz,” “Big on Big”