Rubber City Review

As we approach the end of 2011, some of you might be looking at various ways to shake things up in the coming year. Maybe take a few dance classes, learn how to cook with a wood-burning stove, turn that toolshed into a bitchin’ mancave, recycle that oxy you found in grandpa’s bathroom…

I tend to be a little more realistic. It’s hard enough dealing with the day-to-day challenges of making ends meet with a dwindling paycheck. Why complicate matters by trying to reinvent yourself? The craziest thing I’ve done in recent years is start this blog (which I view as the cornerstone of RCR’s burgeoning virtual empire… and my wife sees as “the thing that keeps you from fixing this goddam sink”). That slight reinvention should do me for the entire decade – or at least until End of Days (see #10).

This year, I prefer to simply express my gratitude for all the things that somehow went well in 2011. Let’s face it, plenty of things sure as shit went south. We lost Hubert Sumlin, Howard Tate, Dobie Gray, Amy Winehouse, Cesaria Evora, Manuel Galban, Doyle Bramhall, Gil Scott-Heron, Bert Jansch, Willie “Big Eyes” Smith, Clarence Clemons, Cornell Dupree, Pinetop Perkins, Melvin Sparks, Big Jack Johnson, Eddie Kirkland… and, in a way, Etta James, who’s in the final stages of leukemia and also suffers from dementia. Also, Fear Factor came back on the air – an event that surely was documented in Revelations. And Rick Perry’s still in the hunt. But let’s set aside those tragedies for now and focus instead on some positives from a year that needed every one of them.

1. 10 Years of Daptone Records. It’s reassuring to know that soul music – made the way god and James Brown intended – is alive and well in Brooklyn. But that’s just part of the story at Daptone. Do yourself a favor and pick up one of the label’s outstanding samplers. You’ll find everything from Afro-beat (Antibalas) to a capella gospel (“Como Now: The Voices of Panola Co., Mississippi”). Simply put, Daptone is an American treasure. Here’s to many more decades of fine, funky soul… and a whole lot more. Let’s celebrate the first 10 years with the queen of Daptone soul, Sharon Jones: Be Easy/Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings
2. More Live Music on TV. Maybe I’m deluded, but it seems like I’m coming across more first-rate music programming on cable (not on the main broadcast networks, unless you count your favorite band’s performance on SNL, Letterman or Jimmy Fallon – and even then, you have to wade through a lot of crap to get there). In the course of a few days, I watched two great shows on Palladia – one featuring Radiohead (The King of Limbs: Live from the Basement) and a rebroadcast of My Morning Jacket on VH1 Storytellers. And although it only includes a few live performances, Talihina Sky: The Story of Kings of Leon was easily one of the most powerful and captivating rock docs I’ve ever seen (video below). Keep ‘em coming, cable gods!
3. The Return of Gillian Welch. It took Welch eight years to deliver a follow-up to her previous album, “Soul Journey.” But “The Harrow & The Harvest” was well worth the wait. Tunes like Scarlet Town and The Way It Goes capture Welch and her longtime musical partner David Rawlings at the top of their game – combining heavenly harmonies with Rawlings’ predictably stunning fretwork. I had the great pleasure of seeing the duo on tour in support of the new album… noticed a lot of local pickers watching Rawlings’ every move. But my favorite moment found him on banjo and harmonica as Welch hamboned and clogged her way through Six White Horses (video below). It seemed like a pure expression of joy, without pretense or artifice. In other words, many galaxies away from modern country.
4. The Black Keys Bust Loose. They started the year on a roll, and now they’ve conquered the world with their new album “El Camino.” As Brian van der Brug of the LA Times put it, “After something like 30-odd years of listeners’ declaring that rock had run out of steam, there’s something wonderfully weird about a drums-and-guitar duo riding swaggering blues-rock to the top, and it sounds even better.” Basically, it’s what happens when two unassuming and non-ironic dudes from Akron reinvent blues, soul, garage rock and a few other vital strains of American music, tour relentlessly, and spend countless hours honing their craft. I know, pouring Crystal over strippers sounds a lot more glamorous, but for these guys, it would just get in the way of the work. Money Maker/The Black Keys
5. Music Streaming Services Become More Competitive. And by competitive, I mean “free.” Actually, I’m not sure if this is a positive or a negative. Earlier this year, RCR teamed up with the MOG Music Network, which gave me access to their massive digital library. It’s pretty cool, but in some ways overwhelming. If you have 16 million+ songs at your fingertips, where exactly do you start? Playlists and Pandora-like streaming helps, but I get a little cranky when a song by Steve Earle is followed by American Pie or some other dreck. Fact is, they should just pay me to program their service (then they’d really be out of business!).
6. The Miami Heat Tanks. I know, I shouldn’t take pleasure in another team’s demise. But they sort of asked for it, didn’t they? I don’t even consider myself a LeBron hater. After all, he keeps coming back to our fair city to dole out money to various charities and play some hoops with his buddies. But it would’ve really pissed me off if the billion-dollar trio had realized their goal in Year One. The King will eventually get his Ring, but let him wait a few more years… builds character.
7. I Finally Visit Europe. You didn’t think I’d leave myself out of this, did you? I should be embarrassed to admit that at fifty-(cough) years, I’d never made it to Europe. But I fixed that in June when I flew to Berlin with my wife (hobbled by a knee injury) and daughter. We spent a few days in Chemnitz, a former car manufacturing center that was practically destroyed by bombs in WWII and then partially rebuilt under Communist rule (the bartender at the hotel yearned for the good old days when the Russians would show up with wads of cash). Then we survived a wild night in Berlin with our friends at iCrates before heading over to Paris, where we joined throngs of other tourists staring at the Notre Dame Cathedral, the gardens of Versailles, the Eiffel Tower, the Arch de Triumph… Glad we went, not sure we’ll be back any time soon. Aaah, the ennui…
8. I Got Hooked on Justified. For this, I blame my sister Mary. It seems to me that few shows capture the nuances of life below the Mason-Dixon Line better than Justified. There’s nothing even remotely hip about the show – other than maybe the theme song by Gangstagrass with T.O.N.E.-Z: Long Hard Times to Come Just solid storylines with some fine acting (including a well-deserved Emmy for Margo Martindale, who scared the shit out of me as Mags Bennett, the matriarch of a very twisted crime family from Harlan County). And it’s all served up with a healthy dose of backwoods funk and filth. Still time to jump on board this crazy train… Season 3 starts on January 17 (FX).
9. Commodity Prices Rise as Dollar Weakens. Actually, I have no idea what this is all about… Just thought it was time for RCR to tackle one of the more important financial issues facing the nation. Done.
10. Last Full Year Before End Times. The 5,125-year Great Cycle of the Ancient Mayan Calendar ends on winter solstice, December 21, 2012 (at 11:11 a.m., to be precise). What does this mean? Is The Rapture near, or am I confusing the Mayans with a religious cult in Idaho? I think the best we can hope for is that we reconnect with the wisdom of nature, and Bravo cancels the next season of The Real Housewives of New Jersey.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t thank my family for sticking with me as I spend far too much time on dubious missives like this one. After all, what’s more important than the support of your loved ones? Even Charles Manson hears from his family this time of year… in the “extended” sense of the word, of course.

Kings of Leon perform Talihina Sky – after a solid minute of bitching…

Gillian Welch and David Rawlings at the 2011 Newport Folk Festival…

Fall has arrived in Northeast Ohio, which means five glorious days of breathtaking color. The other 83 days? Take your pick between sort of a rain/mist hybrid or bone-chilling cold, compounded by an impenetrable sky of thick dark clouds.

So naturally this is a time of great reflection… an opportunity to contemplate our own mortality, usually over a few cocktails. It’s time to forget about those light, carefree songs of summer. The sun’s going down, Katy Perry and Coldplay, so run on home before it gets dark. We need tunes with a little gravitas – songs that embrace the dimming of the day and usher in the long, lonely nights of winter. But most of all, we need another cheap excuse for a random playlist.

I defy you to take a song, any song, from Radiohead’s “The King of Limbs” album and play it in broad daylight. I’m fairly confident it would cause rivers to run backward and small animals to burst into flames. But go ahead and crank it up in the basement, which is where the band recreated these songs for a one-hour special that originally appeared on the BBC (and now is showing on my favorite new cable channel, Palladia). The basement performances are stunning – using embryonic riffs and electronic blips as springboards for knotty, full-blown arrangements that I found mesmerizing, especially when lead singer Thom Yorke started dancing like, eh, the king of limbs. I’m warming up to the album – especially this song: Little by Little But do yourself a favor and watch Yorke and company turn up the heat on these tunes in “Live from the Basement” (see video at the end of this post).

Sean Costello was a very gifted blues guitarist, singer and songwriter who passed away from an accidental drug overdose in 2008 at the young age of 28. As a soloist, he tended to dance along the edges – and you can hear his more adventurous side on Susan Tedeschi’s Grammy-nominated “Just Won’t Burn,” which Costello appeared on when he was only 18. He also recorded a string of genre-bending solo albums, culminating in 2008’s excellent “We Can Get Together.” It’s the sound of an artist finally hitting his stride and leaving behind some of the tired conventions of modern blues. Unfortunately, he left this world just when we needed him the most. Here’s a choice cut from his final album to remind us of what we’re missing: Anytime You Want

A new Tom Waits album is certainly reason to celebrate. So uncork the cheap shit on October 24, when the Anti label releases Wait’s “Bad As Me.” He’s not the kind of artist who elicits comments like “I hope he records another blah, blah, blah” or “I can’t wait until he tackles the Great American Songbook.” You just assume he’s going to come up with another wildly original work of art; something that will challenge your senses or maybe even alter your consciousness. As Waits himself crooned some 35 years ago, “change your shorts, change your life… change into a nine-year-old Hindu boy.” I think that says it all. Now sit back and enjoy this nasty little number from the new album: Bad as Me

Few things are more achingly beautiful than the sound of Dusty Springfield’s voice. Even on the pop fluff – little wonders like Wishin’ and Hopin’, You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me and The Look of Love. Fortunately for us, she hit some of the hard stuff too. Hard soul, that is (not a tasteless reference to the substance abuse issues she struggled with later in life). Many critics regard “Dusty in Memphis” as the high water mark in a recording career that spanned four decades. No argument here… although the whole thing was a bit of a sham given that Dusty recorded her vocals in New York City. Still, some of that Memphis vibe clearly rubbed off, and Dusty returned the favor by convincing the brass at Atlantic Records to sign Led Zeppelin (those Brits sure stick together). Sounds like a pretty good deal to me. Breakfast in Bed

Someday when I grow up, I’ll write a post about Bud Powell. I love listening to the great jazz pianist tear through originals like Un Poco Loco and Parisian Thoroughfare. I just can’t describe with any authority what I’m hearing (and I know that’s why y’all come to this site, right?). I do know that he was the first jazz pianist to approximate the lightning-fast be-bop runs of Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. And I’m familiar with the conventional wisdom that Powell, who suffered from mental illness and reportedly was “treated” with electroshock therapy, was never the same following a beating he took from police in 1945. Then I listen to performances like Cleopatra’s Dream (recorded in 1958) and I have to ask myself, is this really the sound of someone playing with diminished capacity? Cleopatra’s Dream

Looks like I ditched the whole fall theme about five songs ago. I’ll try to reel it back in with this number by acoustic guitar wizard Tony Rice. Although a bluegrass picker at heart, Rice is just as comfortable interpreting songs by Canadian folkie Gordon Lightfoot or jazz legend Wes Montgomery. He grew up in L.A., which may not seem like a bluegrass hotbed but the city did expose him to the amazing talent of Clarence White, the legendary guitarist for the Kentucky Colonels and the Byrds. Like his mentor, Rice plays even the most straightforward songs with a jazz-like and often skewed sense of phrasing. But back to autumn… This Rice original seems tailor-made for the fall season – a bittersweet blues that reminds us time is slipping away: Blues for Paradise

Speaking of fall, let’s revisit the wonderful new album by Gillian Welch, “The Harrow & the Harvest.” Now I won’t go into my usual rant about all the high praise heaped on indie darlings like the Fleet Foxes and the Decemberists while seasoned veterans like the Wood Brothers or Welch (with her longtime foil David Rawlings on guitar and harmonies) are largely ignored. So here’s to stark, intimate harmonies and stunning fretwork – not to mention well-crafted originals that somehow sound completely fresh and as old as the hills. We’ll leave the virtual dry-humping of those other bands to the experts. Scarlet Town

Most songs from the Caribbean are not what I’d call “autumnal.” They usually make you (or at least me) think about hot, sweaty, open-air dives that serve enough Red Stripe in one night to intoxicate a small island nation. And maybe this tune does too. But it’s definitely on the darker, more introspective end of the scale. The artist is Cuban bassist and composer Orlando “Cachaito” Lopez – nephew of mambo innovator Israel “Cachao” Lopez. Cachaito appeared on the wildly popular and Grammy-winning Buena Vista Social Club album (and accompanying documentary by Wim Wenders) released in 1997. Cachaito’s solo release from 2001 was a revelation to me. I was expecting more of the same respectful and almost stately arrangements heard on the other Buena Vista releases. But clearly the man came to play – not just fluid and often funky bass lines, but also with the Afro-Cuban form itself. The album even touches on hip hop and dub reggae (keep in mind, Cachaito was 68 when it was released). He passed away in 2009, joining five other original BVSC members already on the other side… and guitarist Manuel Galban’s death earlier this year brought the total to seven. R.I.P. Cachaito, Galban (who plays on this cut), Faustino Oramas, Compay Segundo, Ruben Gonzalez, Ibrahim Ferrer and Pio Leyva. Redencion

Thom Yorke demonstrates why every self-respecting rock band needs maracas…

You’ve probably seen this video somewhere else, but always worth a second look – Tom Waits’ Private Listening Party:

Hey, someone peel a grape for Dusty, stat! (Special thanks to friend and longtime Dusty admirer Andy Moore for sending this clip our way.)

Is that Saul Goodman rolling out the new Black Keys album, “El Camino”??

So maybe I should explain what this MOG stuff on my site is all about.

A few months ago, I received an email from someone at MOG inviting me to join their network of music bloggers. And I responded to it in my normal fashion – by simply ignoring it. (By the way, I recently lost a year’s worth of emails, so if the guy who sent me the deep blues compilation is reading this, please re-send!)

Then a few weeks later, MOG fired off another email that basically said “dude, are you sure you want to ignore our invitation?” I have to admit, that got my attention.

Turns out, being a MOG blogger has its advantages, especially when you consider my current level of compensation (somewhere in the low zeros). For example, I have free access to their online library of over 11 million songs. Granted, I’m only interested in a small fraction of those songs, but it enables me to check out a lot of stuff I wouldn’t normally listen to. Bands like Grizzly Bear, Fleet Foxes, The Decemberists and Bon Iver, which remind me how much I miss “Déjà Vu” by CSN&Y… or how little I care about The Beach Boys (I know, heresy).

Without sounding like a late-night TV pitchman, let me give you the skinny on this newfangled subscription service. You can start by entering your favorite artist – let’s say, Boxcar Willie. Then MOG shows you all of the albums released by Mr. Willie, as well as compilations that include his songs. Then you can choose to listen to specific songs or an entire album, such as “Last Train to Heaven” (which received an average rating of five stars from MOG members, which tells you they either share a strong sense of ironic detachment or a deep appreciation of the Boxcar oeuvre).

The MOG player also includes this sliding rule that moves from “Artist Only” on the far left to “Similar Artists” on the far right. So you can adjust the player to select other tunes by Mr. Willie or songs from similar artists or a preferred mix of the two, and those songs will play after your current selection is over. By the way, I’ve already moved on to The Wood Brothers… don’t really feel like riding the Boxcar today. Stumbled In

If you think you’re onto something that bears a second listen, you can save it as your own personal playlist. Or you can choose to buy any given song from iTunes so you can have it for posterity.

Fact is, I’m sure MOG is very similar to other online music subscribers, like Rhapsody, Napster and Rdio (but better, of course, given MOG’s patronage of RCR). And I think – but correct me if I’m wrong – the main advantage that the subscription services have over Pandora (which is still free) is the ability to listen to specific songs or albums on demand.

To further complicate matters, Spotify just entered the U.S. market with a “freemium” service, ranging from free access with commercial interruptions and a time cap to $9.99/month for unlimited access, better sound quality and other extras. A friend of mine with the free service found it lacking in the Pandora-like personalized radio department (for more on Spotify, check here or here).

All of this reminds me of an article I recently came across in the New York Times by music critic Jon Pareles, who faces a dilemma that should be familiar to anyone who owns a large quantity of music – some of it rare – in various formats. I’ll describe it in my own terms: 11 million songs on MOG, but no sign of my favorite yuletide album, “Please Mr. Santa Claus” by Evan Johns and His H-Bombs (I still have my red vinyl copy). Stuffin’ in the Stocking

The problem then becomes, should I continue hoarding all my CDs, albums and cassettes (including many titles that are long out of print) using some kind of anal-retentive, color-coded tabulation system for easy retrieval? Or should I eventually get rid of those relics while keeping a massive digital library on my home computer that includes songs I’ll never find on MOG? Or, should I look to the clouds (The Cloud, to be precise) for a personalized online storage option – supported by Google Music Beta or, soon, iTunes Match – that would free up valuable space on my hard drive?

And what idiot invented the term “The Cloud”? Can’t we strip away all this whacky wiki-mysticism and call it what it is, a server? Deep breaths…

Pareles covers other ground in his article, like the fact that compressing all your music into digital files is very convenient but ultimately a poor substitute for vinyl and CDs played through high-end stereo systems. And having all this music readily available on a hand-held device ultimately cheapens the value of the music – as well as the amount of revenue that trickles down to hard-working musicians. All very thought-provoking and, to some of us, maybe even a little troubling.

The value of vinyl, explained.

But I’m confident someone will eventually come up with a workable “de-compression” system (I think a couple of tube-driven ones are already on the market) that approximates the warm analog sound. And I’ve got a nephew who’s figured out how to make a few bucks in the business the old-fashioned way – creating music that doesn’t treat rock’s roots with contempt, and steadily building an audience through constant touring (although I’m not sure The Black Keys would get the same breaks today that they did 10 years ago).

For the most part, I’m no different from the vast majority of music nuts. I want it… I want it now… I want it wherever I am… and I don’t want to pay much for it. And by those standards, MOG works just fine. Here’s Pareles’ take on it:

“For me… the great hope of the cloud is the subscription services, like MOG and Rdio. Their catalogs are deep, their interfaces sensible, their sound quality decent though not spectacular. For every fan who imagines herself a D.J., there’s a new social curatorial model arising in these services, somewhere between the old homemade cassette mixtape handed to a friend and full-scale broadcasting, with a giant potential library.”

“So Tim,” one might ask, “now that you have this unlimited access to new music, what have you been listening to?”

Well, I’ll close with some new “old” music from Gillian Welch’s latest release, “The Harrow & The Harvest.” It’s basically more of the same from Welch and her musical soulmate David Rawlings (guitar and harmonies). Which is a wonderful thing, given that this strain of backwoods American soul is practically a lost art. In fact, when you consider most of the dreck that is modern country – and some of the lightweight drivel that makes a whole lot of indie bloggers hyperventilate – you could argue that Welch and Rawlings have staked out the new alternative. Timeless songs with close-knit harmonies and stunning guitar… what’s not to like? The Way It Goes

The MOG genie led me from that tune to this one by Lucinda Williams, an artist I lost track of about five or six years ago. Big mistake… “Blessed” might be her best album yet: Copenhagen

This is how it’s done, son… Gillian Welch and David Rawlings live in London. Watch how Rawlings slaps on his capo right before he takes a solo. Never saw Albert Collins do that!

Lucinda Williams, with John Jackson (slide) and Kenny Vaughan on guitars. What do you call this, white-trash soul? Hillbilly crunk? I like the fact that while the indie boys are getting all misty-eyed about orchards and honeycomb towers, an AARP-qualified Lucinda just wants to rock (when she played this song on Austin City Limits, her band launched into the riff from Heartbreaker by Led Zeppelin – an irony-free moment of pure rock ‘n roll bliss):

The Stanley Brothers: Ralph and Carter

I come from a big family of harmony singers. Myself, I can barely sing in unison… with Autotune. When my sister Caroline and I accidentally ended up at the same college for a year, she sat me down for hours on end and tried to teach me the harmonies to what seemed like the entire Emmylou Harris songbook. I failed miserably.

When we got together for family gatherings, my brothers and sisters would work out intricate harmonies to popular bluegrass songs. One tune in particular, Fox on the Run, required an extra voice… it had one of those staggered, layered harmonies, just like the Three Stooges used to do (“hello, hello, hello… goodbye”!). I’d always bring everything to a screeching halt by screwing up my big moment – I think it was the fourth “like a fox.” Many laughs at my expense.

But I rolled with it… mainly because we didn’t try to tackle that song until later in the evening, when just getting up from the couch qualified as an amusing activity. Besides, I’m perfectly happy sitting back and listening – because there are few things more sublime than the sound of clear, natural voices, locked together in harmony.

I think most of this need to sing came from my Dad’s side of the family and particularly his mother Sarah (Jahant). In his autobiography “The Time of My Life,” the late philosopher Willard Van Orman Quine – my Dad’s first cousin and guitarist Robert Quine’s uncle – describes what it was like to hang with his relatives who grew up in the shadows of Akron’s rubber factories:

“Our two subfamilies converged just once a year, after Christmas, midway at my grandfather’s house. With Grandpa and Aunt Bess we made twelve. Aunt Sarah would play the old treadle organ and Uncle Harry and my cousins would sing. I thought it admirable, and still do. There was no singing at our house. My mother played the piano occasionally and my brother and I were given lessons in the violin and mandolin respectively, but somehow it was embarrassing to sing.” Oddly enough, W.V. loved the harmonies of The Everly Brothers and at one party made my brothers Jack and James serenade him with a few of the Everlys’ hits.

There’s no mystery to why so much great harmony singing comes from the bluegrass tradition. Is there any other form of music as communal and democratic as bluegrass? OK, maybe African drumming, or the barbershop quartet. But let’s keep the focus on the human voice in its natural state (my apologies to you glee-clubbers and straw-hatters out there). And as much as I love gospel music, it approaches harmony more from the blending of big vocal sections, as opposed to two- or three-part singing.

Of course, the iconic bluegrass image is four or five musicians, straining to sing into the same mic, often with their instruments at their sides. So I guess we can thank technological limitations – or maybe a reluctance to spend a few precious bucks on an extra mic or two – for all the hard work that these musicians put into creating amazing harmonies with strong, distinct and soulful voices.

I’ve asked my brothers and sisters to give us a few of their favorite examples of harmony vocals. But first, a few thoughts on what it means to sing in harmony…

“When singing harmony, I think it’s helpful to narrow your voice a little to help it blend and, if you have a vibrato, lose it,” says James. “There are a lot of great harmony singers you wouldn’t necessarily want to listen to all night if they were singing alone. Also, a little dissonance is a beautiful thing.” Here’s one of James’ favorites – Tragic Romance, by The Stanley Brothers: Tragic Romance/The Stanley Brothers

“Great two-part harmonies can stand on their own as melodies,” says Caroline. “Uninspired harmonies tend to hang out on the thirds or fifths and follow the melody around like a shadow. Melodic harmonies, on the other hand, will stay close, open up, come back — interweave with the melody.” A good example is Doc Watson’s Your Long Journey (covered by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss on their Grammy-winning album “Raising Sand”): Your Long Journey/The Doc Watson Family

Jack offers some basic, straightforward advice: “Hit the note and make it ring… and pay attention to the phrasing – which was something that acts like Simon and Garfunkel and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young obviously worked very hard at.”

As an example of great harmony singing, Sister Mary points to alternative country favorites Buddy and Julie Miller: “The thing about Julie Miller is the timbre of her voice, which is really extraordinary. She makes the normal country harmonies seem special.” Music critic Thom Jurek calls them “the most important duet in country-rock since Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris.” Here’s the more rockin’ side of Buddy and Julie: You Make My Heart Beat Too Fast/Buddy and Julie Miller

Speaking of Emmylou and Gram, Caroline loves virtually everything they sang together, but especially this one from 1973’s “Grievous Angel.” In fact, all of us picked at least one song featuring Emmylou, which places her in the newly formed RCR Harmony Hall of Fame. Emmylou went on to a successful solo career post-Gram, staying true to their legacy by recording with great vocalists like Jonathan Edwards and Ricky Skaggs… Love Hurts/Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris

Jack has a weakness for bluegrass gospel – which probably offers more outstanding examples of harmony singing than any other sub-genre of music. The Stanley Brothers, The Louvin Brothers, Bill Monroe, Jim & Jesse, The Osborne Brothers… They all drew from a big repertoire of gospel songs that they would play at gigs that didn’t involve honky tonks and heavy drinking. Jack can sing and play just about all of them, usually with James, Mary and Caroline adding some well-placed harmonies. Here’s one of Jack’s favorites – Lord Protect My Soul, by Bill Monroe and his Bluegrass Boys. “Monroe’s vocal on this one defines the ‘high lonesome sound,’” Jack adds… Lord Protect My Soul/Bill Monroe & His Bluegrass Boys

Just to show that it ain’t all bluegrass, James singles out Bring It On Home To Me – a soul classic that blends the incomparable voices of Sam Cooke and Lou Rawls. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame named it one of “500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.” This song gets back to Caroline’s point: Both parts would clearly stand on their own as great melodies. And the contrast between Cooke’s silky soul and Rawl’s deep, rich voice only makes it better. Bring It On Home To Me/Sam Cooke with Lou Rawls

In rock, the gold standard remains The Beatles, followed closely by The Beach Boys. But since I live in a landlocked community devoid of sunlight for much of the year, I’ll stick with The Beatles. We could argue endlessly about which song best captures the harmonic convergence of John and Paul. I’ll just throw this one in so we can move on… It proves that harmonies sound cool even when one person (in this case, Paul) only sings one note: Please Please Me/The Beatles

Former hippie that she is, Mary can’t resist the intricate harmonies on Helplessly Hoping by Crosby, Stills and Nash. And, getting back to Jack’s comment, the phrasing in this song is just as essential as the harmonies. You don’t hear this kind of singing anymore. Hell, Crosby, Stills and Nash don’t even sing like this anymore. Time to bring back the bold scent of patchouli mixed with bad weed… Helplessly Hoping/Crosby, Stills & Nash

As Caroline and I talked about great harmonies outside of the bluegrass tradition, we both honed right in on one of our favorite musical acts – Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks. Part cowgirl, part Andrews Sisters, and certainly a product of the Sixties underground aesthetic, the Hot Licks’ harmonies are simply timeless. I’ve worn out several copies of “Striking It Rich” over the years… When is some enterprising music exec going to step up and give Dan Hicks’ early Blue Thumb recordings the “deluxe remastered” treatment they deserve? You Got To Believe/Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks

Jack believes no discussion of harmony is complete without mention of Charlie and Ira Louvin. “A lot of bluegrass, country and pop artists were inspired by the Louvins, including The Everly Brothers,” Jack said. Gram Parsons, Emmylou Harris, The Byrds, Simon & Garfunkel and a whole slew of contemporary country performers owe a huge debt to the masters of “close harmony.” Here’s a good example, a country hit for the Louvins in 1956: You’re Running Wild/The Louvin Brothers

Obviously, Mary’s son Dan Auerbach grew up surrounded by a lot of bluegrass and harmony singing. Although he’s better known for some of the heaviest riffs in modern rock, he remains a big fan of family duets – especially The Stanley Brothers and The Everly Brothers.  Like the rest of us, Dan also loves the harmony singing of Gillian Welch and her long-time musical foil, David Rawlings.

Although she grew up in West L.A., Welch couldn’t get enough of traditional family acts like The Stanley Brothers and The Carter Family. And you couldn’t find better accompaniment for her stunning, unadorned voice than Rawlings, who seems to take harmony singing – and guitar playing – to a whole new level. Here’s the gorgeous number that opened her 1996 debut, “Revival.” Orphan Girl/Gillian Welch with David Rawlings

Nephew Dan and Brother James put on a clinic… Dan and James keep the family harmony tradition alive – from Dan’s solo album “Keep It Hid.” This was filmed at Dan’s home studio in Akron, Easy Eye.