Plant and Krauss give classics new life
Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, “Raise the Roof ” (Rounder): Fourteen years after the release of their album of the year Grammy winner, “Raising Sand,” Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant and American bluegrass singer Alison Krauss are back at it again.
Like their first foray, this record is produced by T Bone Burnett, and despite the hiatus, the three have apparently been sending songs back and forth to each other ever since. The result is stunning: a compendium of diverse reimaginations of songs from the folk, country and Americana canon. “These are songs that have gone into our hearts way back in time, but got lost in the twists and curves of the passing years,” Plant says in the duo’s bio.
They breathe new life into interpretations of “Going Where the Lonely Go” by Merle Haggard, Bert Jansch’s “It Don’t Bother Me” and the cinematic reconstruction of the Everly Brothers’ “The Price of Love.” On the album’s lone original, the Plant and Burnett-penned “High and Lonesome,” Plant operates vocally in Zeppelin-like fashion over a blues guitar and reverbed drums, before Krauss’ bold soprano joins him in harmony in a familiar (but always welcome) equation.
Christian Mcbride & Inside Straight, “Live at the Village Vanguard” (Mack Avenue Records): The seven-time Grammywinning bassist just received another nomination in the best jazz ensemble album category for his last release, “For Jimmy, Wes and Oliver.” But Mcbride, wasting no time, has just put out a live album with Inside Straight, “Live at the Village Vanguard.”
Taken from a December 2014 run of shows at the storied New York jazz club, the album presents Mcbride’s signature big, open style of playing the stand-up bass alongside Inside Straight’s Steve Wilson on sax, Warren Wolf on vibraphone, Peter Martin on piano and Carl Allen on drums. “The Shade of the Cedar Tree” is a brilliant confluence of the musician’s sounds, with Mcbride the leader, setting the tone alongside Wilson and the masterful Wolf standing out on vibes. This marks the second “Live at the Village Vanguard” release from the bassist, the first of which was with the Christian Mcbride Trio in 2015 and which, unsurprisingly, won a Grammy. The Doors, “L.A. Woman” 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition (Rhino): The original demo for the Doors’ macabre classic “Riders on the Storm” was thought for decades to be lost, until it was recently discovered on an unmarked tape reel in the band’s vault. This incredible recording is now the highlight of two hours of unreleased material from the band that are included in the 50th anniversary deluxe edition of the 1971 album “L.A. Woman.”
The release, presented in a set of three CDS and one LP, features the remastered album, which includes some of the band’s greatest hits, like “Love Her Madly” and the title track. As a bonus, there are outtakes from the original session recordings of classic blues tracks that Morrison loved, like John Lee Hooker’s “Crawling King Snake” and Junior Parker’s “Mystery Train.”