Old Folks Boogie

Good news for Patti Smith fans (and who isn’t): Patti Smith: Dream of Life, a film by Steven Sebring which was 11 years in the making is finally getting a theatrical release in September. That’s doesn’t mean it will be shown in any theaters in these parts, but at least it will be out there. And that means a DVD release can’t be far behind.

The documentary about Smith, perhaps the most charismatic (not to mention talented) woman in rock music, premiered this year at the Sundance Film Festival, where it was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize. Reuters said the film “gets unusually close to its subject. Experimental camera work and editing makes for a fittingly unconventional portrait of one of the pioneers of punk music.”

Also, a companion book by Sebring that features his photographs of Smith, along with Polaroid taken by Smith, will be released in August.

Finally, a double-CD featuring Smith and Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine performing The Coral Sea will be released July 11. The CDs capture Smith’s and Shield’s performances June 22, 2005, and Sept. 12, 2006, at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall. The performances are based on Smith’s 1996 book The Coral Sea, which is a tribute to artist Robert Mapplethorpe, who took the photograph of Smith that graces the cover of her debut album, Horses.

It’s good news that David Byrne and Brian Eno are teaming up again, 27 years after they released the seminal My Life in the Bush of Ghosts.

It’s even better news that Byrne (without Eno) plans to tour later this year, promising that about 40 percent of his material will be drawn from his collaborations with Eno. That means Byrne will be playing songs from More Songs About Buildings and Food, Fear of Music and Remain in Light, three Talking Heads’ albums Eno played on and helped produce.

It would be great news if Byrne announced he would be touring with Tina Weymouth, Chris Frantz and Jerry Harrision _ his former band mates in Talking Heads.

Alas, that is one reunion not expected to happen _ at least for now. Though bands like the Pixies, the Police and the Eagles have managed to set aside deep differences and unexpectedly reunite, that kind of reconcilation seems beyond the reach of the Heads, which is most unfortunate.

The Heads were one of the most interesting, most intelligent, most adventurous bands to emerge in the 1970s. And the band absolutely killed in concert. The Stop Making Sense tour, documented by filmmaker Jonathan Demme in perhaps the best concert film ever made, showcased a band at the absolute peak of its creative powers. I was fortunate enough to see the show at Philadelphia’s Mann Music Center and it remains one of the most powerful concerts I’ve ever witnessed

It’s doubtful a reunited Talking Heads could again scale that peak, but I bet it could come damn close. None of the former band mates are all that old (at 59, Harrison is the oldest), all have remained musically active and all four can still play. I’m sure they could convince collaborators like Adrian Belew, Bernie Worrell and Nona Hendryx to come along for the ride.

Whether they can recapture the chemistry that made the band so special in its heyday is a question mark, but if the Pixies can do it, why not the Heads?

Neil Young made it official Tuesday: He plans to release his long-awaited archives exclusively on Blu-ray discs. The first installment will cover the years 1963 to 1972 and will be released as a 10-disc set in the fall.

According to an Associated Press story, Blu-ray discs hold more data than DVDs, are easily updated over the Internet and offer better picture and sound quality. Young noted that earlier technology didn’t offer the ability to browse archival material while listening to the songs in high-resolution audio and went on to say in a statement, “Previous technology required unacceptable quality compromises. I am glad we waited and got it right.”

What a smug, arrogant dillweed. I’ve waited years and years and year for this stuff and he’s releasing it in a format I don’t own and have no intention of ever owning. And I’m certainly not going to buy it just to have the privilege of lining Young’s pockets.

 All I want is to hear the music and read any thoughts he might have about it. Disappointment doesn’t even begin to describe my reaction to this news. What’s he thinking?  

I gave up on R.E.M. years and years and years ago, believing the band would never make a worthwhile album after drummer Bill Berry was forced to leave because of a brain aneurysm.

Some bands are like that; you can’t remove one piece without bringing down the whole shebang. I believe the surviving members of Led Zeppelin understand that, despite the fitful reunions that have happened over the years, and I wish the surviving members of the Who had a better grasp of it. I’m convinced the celestial genius of the Beatles only became possible when the four musical pieces (Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starr) began moving in the same orbit.

I believe that Berry’s band mates (Michael Stipe, Peter Buck and Mile Mills) strongly believed in that theory when Berry left. Though they continued on as R.E.M., it seemed as if they were intent on denying their past and reimagining the band as some kind of three-legged beast.

With each album, the band limped further and further away from the qualities that made it great until finally it released Around the Sun, a thoroughly dreadful album that sounded absolutely nothing like R.E.M. It’s one of those albums you play once and forget about - forever. After that disaster, it was my wish that Stipe, Buck and Mills would see fit to put R.E.M. out of its misery. 

Imagine my surprise when, months ago, WXPN played a song called Supernatural  Superserious from the then-yet-to-be-released new R.E.M. album that actually made me turn up the volume on the car radio. Supernatural Superserious hearkens back to R.E.M.’s glory days: It’s driven by Buck’s slashing guitar attack, featuresan emotional vocal by Stipe, some odd backup singing by Mills and lyrics just elliptical enough to remain mysterious. It’s a really good song.

Defying all odds and all expectations, it turns out Supernatural Superserious is a good song on a new R.E.M. album that features a bunch of good songs. Accelerate, released on April Fools Day, roars by in just 36 minutes, but all of those minutes are enjoyable. I don’t think Accelerate deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as masterpieces like Murmur or Document but it’s easily the best thing the band has done since 1992’s Automatic for the People.

I still wish they had retired the R.E.M. name when Berry left the band but I’m happy Stipe, Buck and Mills are still capable of making vital music.    

I was surprised to hear Bruce Springsteen’s song The Rising blaring from the speakers right before Barack Obama spoke during a Saturday night rally in front of the Lancaster Amtrak station.

I wasn’t surprised to hear Springsteen. After all, he’s endorsed Obama and he’s a favorite of presidential candidates (remember Ronald Regan’s misguided use of Born in the U.S.A.) I was just surprised to hear that particular song, which is one of Springsteen’s best but not something I expect to hear at a political rally.

I understand why Obama’s people are attracted to it; the surging chorus speak of hopes and dreams and bright futures. The song itself, however, is a specific story about a fictional New York City firefighter sent to battle the blaze at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

Left the house this morning/Bells ringing filled the air/Wearin’ the cross of my calling/On wheels of fire I come rollin’ down here

The song describes the fireman, saddled with a 60-pound airpack on his back and carrying a fire hose, as he climbs the stairs inside the World Trade Center.

As he climbs in an attempt to fight the fire, it is clear he is rising to meet both his death and his God.

There’s spirits above and behind me/Faces gone black, eyes burnin’ bright/May their precious blood bind me/Lord, as I stand before your fiery light 

There is a litany of contrasting images before the song explodes into a reprise of the chorus.

Sky of blackness and sorrow (a dream of life)/Sky of love, sky of tears (a dream of life)/Sky of glory and sadness (a dream of life)/Sky of mercy, sky of fear (a dream of life)/Sky of memory and shadow (a dream of life)/Your burnin’ wind fills my arms tonight/Sky of longing and emptiness (a dream of life)/Sky of fullness, sky of blessed life 

Come on up for the rising/Come on up, lay your hands in mine/Come on up for the rising/Come on up for the rising tonight

It’s an extraordinarily moving song, one that brought tears to my eyes the first time I understood the song’s narrative and recognized the story Springsteen was telling. It can still bring tears to my eyes if I surrender myself to its emotional power.

I guess it’s not necessarily a bad song to play at a political rally, but I wonder about the intent.

Obama’s people ended the rally by playing Springsteen’s Land of Hope and Dreams, a safe, almost by-the-numbers tune. The intent of this one could not be misconstrued.

I will provide for you/And I’ll stand by your side/You’ll need a good companion for this part of the ride/Leave behind your sorrows/Let this day be the last/Tomorrow there’ll be sunshine/And all this darkness past

In case you missed it, Bob Dylan won a Pulitzer Prize Monday.

Dylan was awarded a special citation for “his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrcial compositions of extraordinary poetic power.”

Hear, hear. It is the first Pulitzer ever awarded to a rock musician and no one is more deserving.

Dylan, 66, perhaps the most important cultural figure of the 20th Century, has put together a body of work unparalleled in popular music. From his debut album, released in 1962, to his most recent, Modern Love, which came out two years ago, Dylan has remained remarkably relevant. His songs, including Blowin’ in the Wind, Mr. Tambourine Man and Like a Rolling Stone, are among the most familiar tunes ever recorded.

Most telling, Dylan, though he remains rooted in American folk and blues, has made his mark in almost every genre imaginable. Some of those genres, including folk-rock, country-rock and pop-gospel, he helped invent. Dylan’s catalog is so deep, so rich, so varied that you can bounce from album to album and experience an artist endlessly reinventing himself. Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited, John Wesley Harding, Nashville Skyline, Blood on the Tracks, Saved and Time Out of Mind are so different it’s sometimes difficult to fathom it’s the work of the same artist.

Dylan remains a polemical figure. His transition from folk to rock caused an uproar and his subsequent tours with the musicians who would become the Band arguably ranks as the most revolutionary act in the history of rock music.

Compare what Dylan and the Band were playing in 1965 to the music being made by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Clearly, Dylan was out there all by his lonesome, making music unimaginable just a couple of years earlier.

A near-fatal motorcycle accident forced Dylan off the edge in 1966 and the singer-songwriter retrenched. When he came back, Dylan, who usually zigged when others zagged, released John Wesley Harding, a  simple, quiet acoustic album completely disconnected from the elaborately produced psychedelia that was all the rage at the time.

Since then, Dylan has been written off as a has-been time and time again. But he always comes back. Blood on the Tracks,  a work of great confessional songwriting that is one of his best-loved albums, came out of nowhere in 1975 and he faced down his own mortality with Time Out of Mind, the spookiest album he’s ever made. And that album was the start of a trilogy that includes Love and Theft and Modern Times. They are three of his best albums and whet the appetite for what might come next.

I certainly don’t need the folks handing out Pulitzer Prizes to tell me Bob Dylan is a great artist, but it lifts my spirits to see him receive this kind of recognition.

The folks at the Spring Gulch Folk Festival in New Holland made my day Monday when I learned they had booked singer-songwriter Josh Ritter to perform May 18, the festival’s closing day.

In my not-so-humble opinion, Ritter, 31, is the most exciting young singer-songwriter working today. His last two albums - The Animal Years (2006) and The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter (2007) - are jaw-droppingly good. Both are easily among the best albums released in their respective years.

Ritter has the total package - a great voice, a gift for melody, and best of all, a wondrous way with words. Ritter, whose imagination seems boundless, is clever, insightful, funny, profound, witty and daring - often in the same song.

There’s a song on Historical Conquests called The Temptation of Adams that knocked me on my butt when I realized what was going on. The song is about, of all things, a love affair inside a nuclear missile silo. It’s absolutely brilliant, one of the most inventive songs I’ve heard in many a year.

And I can think of at least a dozen more Ritter songs I like just as much. This guy is the real deal. Trust me.

I’m decidedly underwhelmed by the lineup of acts scheduled to invade Hershey during the concert summer season.

It’s dominated by classic rockers still able to draw olds fans on the concert circuit but unable to generate much excitement with new music. These include Chicago and the Doobie Brothers (June 18), Billy Joel (July 10), Yes (July 16), Rush (July 17) and Cheap Trick, Heart and Journey (Aug. 31).

The two most promising concerts of the summer are Dave Matthews Band and the Black Crowes on June 27 and Counting Crows and Maroon 5 on Aug. 5. All of those bands will be playing new material.

There is one concert for the younger set as the Jonas Brothers, who will be accompanied by Avril Lavigne, are scheduled to perform on July 25.

At my age, I’m not much interested in attending these types of outdoors shows anymore, but the DMB/Black Crowes show is tempting. I’ll take a pass on everything else.

U23D, the concert movie featuring the estimable Irish band, gets a thumb up from both my hands.

This is good stuff: a great performance, terrific sound and wonderful songs.  The 3D effects add to the experience, putting the viewer in the middle of the action, and the crowds in South America, where several concerts were filmed during the band’s 2006 Vertigo tour, are rapturous.

The film, which is playing at the IMAX theater in Harrisburg’s Whitaker Center through May 7, is not a documentary; there are no backstage peeks at the band getting ready for a performance or interviews with the musicians’ coterie. Instead, it’s a close-up (and I do mean close-up) look at a great band doing what it does best - performing. Those who haven’t seen U2 in concert will likley be surprised at just how much sound the three instrumentalists (guitarist The Edge, bassist Adam Clayton and drummer Larry Mullen Jr.) generate and just how charismatic singer Bono is.

The only real criticism I’ve heard leveled at the movie has come from those put off by Bono’s insistence on mixing a message into his music. No one should be surprised, however, as Bono has been a longtime proponent of the notion that people should put aside their prejudices and reach across racial, religious and class lines to help the less fortunate of the world.

I suppose he can sound sanctimonious at times and perhaps that can be grating to some. I also realize these are cynical times but to take shots at Bono for trying to promulgate brotherhood seems misguided at best. What’s the problem?

As Nick Lowe wrote and Elvis Costello so winningly sang, What’s So Funny About Peace Love and Understanding?    

I felt compelled to buy Herbie Hancock’s River: The Joni Letters following its shocking win for album of the year at this year’s Grammy Awards.

Glad I did. The tribute to Joni Mitchell is a good album _ excellent songs by one of the most gifted songwriters of her generation, virtuoso playing by Hancock and his talented band (including bassist Dave Holland and saxophonist Wayne Shorter) and well-turned appearances by a clutch of singers, including Mitchell herself, Tina Turner, Norah Jones and Corinne Bailey Rae.

Was it the best album released in 2007? I don’t think so.

That said, I’m really really happy the Grammy people chose to honor jazz music in general and Herbie Hancock in particular. Jazz is a sorely neglected art form that needs all the attention it can get and Hancock is one of this country’s most gifted artists. Few musicians are more deserving of the recognition.

However, I do not believe Hancock’s album was even the best jazz album released last year; I believe that distinction belongs to Terence Blanchard, a New Orleans native who released the emotionally charged A Tale of God’s Will (A Requiem for Katrina). A Tale of God’s Will, a collaborative effort with songs written by trumpeter Blanchard and members of his terrific band (Derrick Hodge, bass; Brice Winston, saxophones; Aaron Parks, piano; Kendrick Scott, drums) is as passionate of piece of music as I’ve heard in years. From the opening notes, the listener is trapped in a powerful story that moves inexorably toward its mournful conclusion, touching upon every imaginable emotion along the way. This is instrumental music at its finest. The players’ investment in the music _ both emotionally and intellectually _ is palpable.

My admiration for A Tale of God’s Will is boundless. Though it’s a word that’s overused these days, I do believe it is a masterpiece that deserves to be remembered as long as the disaster that spawned it.

Happily, it was awarded the Grammy for best album by a large jazz ensemble. I don’t believe, however, that award is adequate.

It’s been a long time since I last posted. For those of you who look forward to these missives, I apologize. For those of you hoping I’d stay away forever, I also apologize.

As I’ve said before, I was underwhelmed by this year’s class of inductees (Madonna, Leonard Cohen, the Dave Clark Five, the Ventures and John Mellencamp) into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. However, my respect and admiration for Madonna increased a hundredfold Monday night when she brought out Iggy Pop and the Stooges to perform two of her songs - Ray of Light and Burnin’ Up. It was a brilliant move shot through with audaciousness and wit.

Iggy Pop, who made the world unsafe for punk way back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, absolutely deserves to the be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame but has been snubbed In fact, he should have been inducted before any of the artists who got in Monday night.

I was also heartened by the presence of Joan Jett at the ceremony. Jett, who performed with Mellencamp and John Fogerty, is another rocker who should be in the Hall. Jett helped make it safe for girls to rock and her commitment to the genre is unquestioned.

Of course, this is the same Rock and Roll Hall of Fame that hasn’t seen fit to induct Richard Thompson or the band he founded as a teenager, Fairport Convention. But a list of all the musicians I believe should be in the Hall but haven’t been admitted is fodder for another post.

Perhaps Neil Young has simply lost his mind.

For at least two, maybe three decades, Young has teased fans with tales of his treasure-trove of archival recordings. Every time it seemed the actual release of his archives was imminent, Young yanked it off the table, leaving fans disappointed and frustrated.

The teasing continues, though Young whetted many an appetite by actually releasing Live at the Filmore East,  a 1970 concert featuring Crazy Horse, and Live at Massey Hall, a 1971 solo acoustic show. Both are seminal.

Those two CDs, seemed to be mere appetizers for the main course, a monster archival package featuring 8 CDs, two DVDS and a 150-page book, that was supposed to be released in September, according to a posting on Reprise Records’ Web site. September, however, however, came and went and the package was never released. Young’s decision to release Chrome Dreams II last year apparently supplanted plans for the archival release.

Reprise, however, said the archival package would be released Feb. 19.

Fat chance. Young has not only announced that it again will be delayed but now says the archives won’t include CDs; it will only be released on Blu-ray and DVD. Huh?!?!?

Young apparently despises the sonic limitation of CDs. According to a story on billboard.com, “Young is utilizing DVD capabilities to present an interactive ‘time line’ for the music, allowing users to experience articles and film clips from a song’s given era as well as ephemera like lyric sheets.

Frankly, I don’t care about time lines and ephemera, and I could do without the articles and film clips. All I really want is to hear the damn music Young has locked away in his bulging vaults.

I realize that everybody seems to be predicting the imminet demise of the CD but I suspect most of the folks willing to plunk down major dollars to root through Young’s audio attics want the music on CDs. The packaging is a bonus; what matters is the music.

Perhaps Young, for whatever reason, really has no intention of releasing his archives during his lifetime and this latest twist is simply another delaying tactic.

 I just hope he or his heirs see fit to release them during my lifetime.

The success of Long Road Out of Eden, the first album in 28 years by the Eagles, demonstrates that hard versions of albums, like a CD or a vinyl LP, will not disappear from the Earth until every Baby Boomer is dead.

Long Road Out of Eden has sold more than 3 million copies and was one of the best-selling albums of 2007 and will likely continue selling well in 2008. I don’t know if the the album is any good because I haven’t heard it, though its popularity has certainly piqued my interest. I was a huge fan of the Eagles back in the day but figured they couldn’t have a whole lot to say if they weren’t moved to release an album over almost a 30-year span. Also, the album was long in the works and oft-delayed, and that never bodes well (consider the long-rumored Guns n’ Roses album supposedly being recorded by Axl Rose).

Even without listening to it, however, I love the album because the Eagles managed to defy the conventional wisdom infecting the music industry (nobody wants to buy CDs and albums are passe) by bypassing the industry altogether and putting the album where their fans could most easily find it. The band did that by releasing the album on their own label, and at least initially, signing an exclusive agreement with WalMart, the nation’s largest retailer, to sell it.

Obviously, the strategy worked spectacularly and the members of the Eagles are raking in the profits instead of industry types who don’t know diddley.

It also demonstrates that people of my generation who grew up on vinyl and then converted to CDs will buy albums when motivated.

Music writers oohed and aahed when Radiohead decided to let anybody download its album In Rainbows and then decide what the band deserved in recompense. It was a noble gesture on the part of the band but apparently most people who downloaded it decided the members of Radiohead didn’t deserve any renumeration for its creative endeavor _ a result I find extraordinarily troubling.

It seems as if the iPod generation believes all music should be free when it’s snatched out of the air and compressed into a computer. That attitude will kill music just as quickly as lame-brained record-company executives who believe songs should be sold like widgets.

Radiohead did recently release In Rainbows on CD, and not surprisingly, it has sold well. Though you’d never know it by reading the pundits who confidently predict the demise of the album, there are a lot of people who love music and want to buy something they can hold in their hands and take home.

I suspect it’s the people who bought Radiohead’s CD who will provide the economic means for Thom Yorke and his band mates to release more albums, not the folks who decided Radiohead should make music for free.

I believe the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has become just as irrelevant as the Grammy Awards. The Grammys really don’t pay tribute to the best music made in a given year and the Hall of Fame really isn’t enshrining the best that rock music has to offer.

There’s no question that the Hall of Fame does include rock’s most influential practitioners, but that pool of talent seems to get more and more diluted as more and more marginal performers are allowed entrance. I believe the Hall needs to be a lot more selective in terms of who they let in.

Consider this year’s class: Madonna, John Mellencamp, Leonard Cohen, the Dave Clark Five and the Ventures.

Madonna, obviously, was a shoo-in and is somebody I admire a lot, mostly because I believe she’s the best businesswoman in the world. However, I also believe she’s a triumph of marketing while her music is marginal.

John Mellencamp is a journeyman rocker who has written some good songs under a bunch of different names and had the good sense to hire Kenny Aronoff as his drummer. Greatness, however, has eluded him.

Leonard Cohen is a terrific songwriter but I don’t think he has anything to do with rock music.

The Ventures? I know the songs Telstar, Walk - Don’t Run and Hawaii Five-O. Am I missing something? I’d rather see Dick Dale get in. At least he was an innovator.

Have you recently tried to find a CD by the Dave Clark Five? Good luck. As far as I can tell, there is absolutely nothing in print in this country, not even a greatest-hits collection. I was a fan of The Dave Clark Five during that brief time the band was considered one of the Beatles’ chief competitors. That didn’t last, however, and I stopped listening when I turned 12. Since that time, I never felt the need to go back and listen to Glad All Over.

Are these five artists Hall-of-Fame caliber? I think not.  

I’m saddened by the death of Dan Fogelberg, who passed away Sunday of prostate cancer at the age of 56.

Fogelberg was one of those sensitive singer-songwriter types who flourished in the 1970s, along with artists like Jackson Browne, Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Carole King and the Eagles. I loved that genre. Still do.

I also felt a certain kinship to Fogelberg. We were about the same age and we both spent time in the same Illinois towns. Fogelberg was born in Peoria and I spent two years at Bradley University in Peoria. Before he had a recording contract, Fogelberg was a fixture on the coffeehouse circuit in Champaign-Urbana and I spent my final two years of college at the University of Illinois in those twin cities.

I saw Fogelberg perform before he released Home Free, his debut album, in 1972. I wish I could say I knew immediately that Fogelberg would go on to become an international star, but I can’t. I’m not that smart.

I can say I wasn’t surprised when Fogelberg hit it big in 1974 with the release of Souvenirs, which contained the single Part of the Plan.

However, nobody, Fogelberg included, could have predicted the success of The Innocent Age, a double-album released in 1981 that landed in that rare place where art and commerce happily co-exist. The Innocent Age, an autobiographical song cycle about the passage from childhood to adulthood is borne aloft by thoughtful lyrics and beautiful melodies. Against all odds, it was a commercial smash, propelled by the hit singles Run for the Roses, Same Old Lang Syne and Leader of the Band.

I listened to The Innocent Age in its entirety today. Great album.

Thanks, Dan.

There has been some gnashing of teeth on the part of  music writers upset that Bruce Springsteen’s Magic did not get a nod as Album of the Year when Grammy nominations were announced last week.

I think the folks doing the nominating got that one right: Magic was not one 2007’s best albums. By any measure, Magic is a minor Springsteen album.

Most of the stories that took note of Springsteen’s omission in that category mentioned that he has never won for Album of the Year, which is an injustice.

Springsteen has made at least five album deserving of Album of Year consideration: Born to Run (Paul Simon’s Still Crazy After All These Years won that year); Darkness on the Edge of Town (Saturday Night Fever); Nebraska (Toto IV); Born in the USA (it was nominated but lost to Lionel Richie’s Can’t Slow Down); and Tunnel of Love (U2’s Joshua Tree).

There has been an inclination on the part of Grammy voters in recent years to give the award to deserving musicians who had been sadly overlooked their entire careers. It’s nice they were finally recognized but the albums for which they were honored clearly are not their best work.

Consider Carlos Santana, who won for Supernatural, Steely Dan, which won for Two Against Nature, and even Bob Dylan, who won for Time Out of Mind.

When fans reach for albums by any of those artists, I doubt those three winners are the ones that end up in the CD changer.

 Voters should choose the best album on artistic merit, not on the basis of sentimentality or to make up for past slights.

In 2005, the Grammy for Album of Year went to Ray Charles’ posthumous album Genius Loves Company. Charles was a genius, one of America’s most prized musicians. Genius Loves Company, however, was not the best album released that year. Not even close.

The award should have gone to Green Day’s American Idiot.

This year’s nominees are an interesting bunch representing a diverse assortment of genres. There’s rock (Foo Fighter’s Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace), country (Vince Gill’s These Days), jazz (Herbie Hancock’s River: The Joni Letters), hip-hop (Kanye West’s Graduation) and R&B (Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black).

Who will win? I’d take Winehouse as a slight favorite over West. Who should win? Gill. 

The Word, a supergroup of sorts that briefly formed in 2001 to record a sensational album of gospel music, is reforming in December for four lives shows.

The four-date tour includes a Dec. 28 show at the Electric Factory in Philadelphia. Tickets are on sale and cost $25.

The Word consists of organist John Medeski (of the jazz trio Medeski, Martin and Wood), the North Mississippi Allstars (guitarist Luther Dickinson, drummer Cody Dickinson and bass player Chris Chew) and sacred steel guitar player Robert Randolph.

The album of traditional gospel tunes burns with a fevered intensity that forces even non-believers to shouting, ‘Halleluah.’ In secular terms, this album closely approximates the sound and spirit of the original Allman Brothers Band, when master guitarist Duane Allman was its leader.

The album also introduced the world to Randolph, who now fronts his own group, the Family Band.

I am certain this will be a great show and can only hope it might lead to another album, perhaps a live one.

I crave melody, yearn for intelligent lyrics and demand passion in my music. All of the albums on this list have those three elements in abundance.

I hesitate to label it a best-of list because I don’t believe I listened to enough new music this year to pass judgment on the glut of releases that flooded the market in 2007.

I do know, however, that these are the albums that I had the hardest time removing from my CD changer. They did not lose luster after a few listenings; instead, their brilliance became more pronounced as repeated listening simply revealed additional facets.

I’m pretty sure I’ll be listening to all these albums for years to come.

Cowboy Junkies -At the End of Paths Taken

Feist - The Reminder

Patty Griffin - Children Running Through

LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver 

Bettye Lavette - The Scene of the Crime

Josh Ritter - The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter

Richard Thompson - Sweet Warrior

Suzanne Vega - Beauty & Crime

White Stripes - Icky Thump

Wilco - Sky Blue Sky

I believe the Country Music Association blew it last week when it handed its album of the year award to George Strait’s It Just Comes Natural.

Nothing against Strait: He is by all accounts a fine fellow, It Just Comes Natural is a likable album and Give It Away was a terrific single.

But CMA could have struck a blow for art over commerce by giving its award to the far more deserving Vince Gill, the mastermind of the audacious These Days.

These Days includes 43 songs either written or co-written by Gill that are spread over four CDs. The songs are divided along thematic lines and each of the CDs features a distinctive sound.

The album is jam-packed with guest artists, including Guy Clark, Emmylou Harris, Patty Loveless, Gretchen Wilson, Diana Krall, Bonnie Raitt, Rodney Crowell and his wife, Amy Grant, and they all add their own distintice touch in service of the songs.

And the songs are great; there’s not a stinker in the lot. But the guests are not the reason to buy the album; the true stars are Gill’s songwriting, singing and guitar playing.

 It all comes in a sumptuous package and is reasonably priced (Amazon is selling it for $21.97, about five bucks a disc).

That this album ever saw the light of day is a miracle. Hats off to MCA Nashville for releasing it.

It is the crowning achievement of Gill’s stellar career and is an album for ages.

It deserves to be recognized as such. Maybe the Grammys will get it right.

 Yeah, like that’s going to happen.

News of Robert Goulet’s death saddened hearts in the Intelligencer Journal newsroom Tuesday night.

Goulet had this endearing practice of sending Christmas cards to reporters who wrote stories about him after doing an interview. Best of all, once you got on his Christmas card list, you were on forever.

The Intell began receiving cards, which always featured either photos or cariactures of Goulet and his wife, Vera, in 1988, when he performed in South Pacific at the Hershey Theatre.

The arrival of the card became a tradition sometime in the 1990s and it was eagerly awaited every year as Christmas approached. We often laughingly said that the Christmas season did not officially arrive until the card did. At some point, I think that became true.

I do know that one year Christmas was just days away and the card had still not arrived.  With each passing day we quickly rifled through the mail in search of the card. When we realized it wasn’t there, it felt like the Grinch had crept into the newsroom and stolen our Christmas cheer.

The card arrived Christmas Eve. We let out a mighty roar, the card was posted on our bulletin board and we all went home to our families and friends in a celebratory mood.

Christmas traditions are important and the Goulet card took on added weight with each passing year.

I will miss not getting that card this year. It may seem silly but Christmas will somehow be diminished.

 It makes me wonder if Goulet ever realized how much happiness he spread through his simple generosity with Christmas cards. I hope he did.

An aside: Every year I sent Goulet one of my family’s Christmas cards, which always feature a photograph of my two children. I don’t know if the card ever made its way past Goulet’s publicist, or whoever it was who opened his mail, but I have this mental picture of Goulet opening the envelope, looking at the card, turning to Vera and saying, “Who the hell are these kids?”