If the holiday bug has bitten and those old Christmas albums are just not enough to satisfy your musical Kringle urge, several artists oblige with holiday shows in the area in the next few days.
With at least one group, you can get both a record and a show. Manhattan Transfer just released its first holiday record, ”The Christmas Album,” and now has embarked on a tour to sing songs from that set in person.
The album (and the show that draws on it) highlights a mix of secular seasonal songs and holiday carols, from ”Let It Snow” to ”Silent Night,”
”The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)” to ”It Came Upon a Midnight Clear.” The eight-time-Grammy-w inning, jazz-pop vocalese group has always favored a cool, detached style. With Johnny Mandel producing and a ”cast of thousands”-horns, strings, choirs, harps, even Tony Bennett- appearing on the record, the musical surface has been buffed to so slick and shiny a sheen that nothing sticks to it, except perhaps a light dusting of sleepy holiday snow. Perhaps in a pared-down concert setting, Manhattan Transfer can perk up these little puppies. If not, it will be ”Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night” when the group appears at the Star Plaza in Merrillville, Ind., Friday.
Larry Gatlin and the Gatlin Brothers bring their holiday show to the Star Plaza Sunday. This Texas family band has roots going back to boyhood, when the brothers sang together as a gospel group, and has been putting out country hits for some 20 years now. Among their Top 10 chart entries have been
”Broken Lady,” ”I Don`t Wanna Cry,” ”I Just Wish You Were Someone I Love,” ”All the Gold in California,” ”Love of a Lifetime” and
”Houston.” The date here is billed as a ”Country and Christmas Show,”
offering a mix of Gatlin Brothers favorites and favorite holiday tunes.
Don`t expect much in the way of holiday music at Melissa Etheridge`s shows Monday and Tuesday at the Chicago Theatre, except perhaps for a version of something like ”Rockin` Around the Christmas Tree.” The shows are, however, part of what has become a holiday tradition in Chicago, the annual Christmas Is for Kids Concert.
Each year`s Christmas Is for Kids show donates a portion of its proceeds
(and any new toys and children`s books concertgoers bring to the event for kids confined to hospitals during the holiday season) to Children`s Memorial Hospital, La Rabida Children`s Hospital and Research Center, Wyler Children`s Hospital at the University of Chicago and the Christmas Is for Kids Charity, which assists abused and homeless children in the Chicago area.
Etheridge was in town earlier this year, touring in support of her latest album, ”Never Enough.” For her third long-player, she finally began to break out of the Seger-esque straitjacket that bound some of her previous work. The last visit proved her new material works well in a concert setting and that this personable singer-guitarist remains one of the hardest-working women in show business when she hits the stage. With the added incentive of a good cause behind her, Etheridge could kick things up another notch for these dates.
Other shows of note
Townes Van Zandt, Friday at the Beat Kitchen: Long before James McMurtry, Chris Whitley and a host of other performers of ”folk blues with a death wish” were practicing their craft, Van Zandt had darn near perfected it. One of the driving forces behind the modern, adventurous and dangerous Texas singer-songwriter school that first began to flourish in the `60s, Van Zandt is a powerful artist, cult hero and consistently compelling performer. Over the years he has released about a dozen superb albums, though his work is best known through interpretations supplied by artist-admirers like Emmylou Harris, Steve Young, Willie Nelson, Doc Watson and Don Williams, who covered such Van Zandt compositions as ”Poncho and Lefty” and ”No Place to Fall.” When Van Zandt falls, emotionally speaking, he creates songs that slowly sink into some of the deepest, darkest pits lyrics ever hit. Come up too fast from this stuff and you get the bends. Never make the trip down, particularly with such an experienced and inspired guide, and you never quite know what life is all about.
Byther Smith and the Kingsnakes, Saturday at the Blue Note in Oak Forest: In a town where most blues players are overexposed and underappreciated, Byther Smith still remains something of a local secret. It`s not completely for want of blues credentials (if nothing else, he is a cousin of J.B. Lenoir) or talent (his style is classic Chicago blues with a contemporary, sometimes funky flair and lots of dark, fiery energy). Nor is it for lack of a career history here. Smith`s professional work goes back to the `60s and the Chicago Travelers gospel group. In the `70s, he cut some singles and worked the clubs (on his own and backing artists like Junior Wells and Big Mama Thornton). Things began to pick up in the `80s, particularly in Europe and Japan, and it was then that Smith recorded the ”Housefire” album that resurfaced last year on Bullseye Blues, bringing him more attention. Smith has been working on a new set for Bullseye, recording in Memphis with the Kingsnakes, the Memphis Horns and producers Terry Manning and Ron Levy. Though the release of the disc, tentatively titled ”Mad Man,” has been pushed back to February, this date is still being billed as a new-album sneak preview, as well as being the first show in the area that Smith and the `Snakes have done in more than a year.
Rounder Banjo Extravaganza, Saturday at the Old Town School of Folk Music: ”What`s the difference between a banjo and a motorcycle?” one featured player here, Tony Trischka, asked in the liner notes to a Rounder banjo compilation that appeared earlier this year. Answer: You can tune a motorcycle. Let`s face it, banjos are rather recalcitrant instruments. And despite a long history that stretches back to Africa and makes the banjo one of the granddaddys of all stringed instruments, most folks today still associate it only with a clanky, limited rhythmic accompaniment to bluegrass tunes or sedate and dated Dixieland.
But a younger generation of players is showing that the instrument can be more flexible and cover a wider stylistic range. Here to prove it are the above-mentioned master player, banjo scholar and wit Trischka, plus Tony Furtado and Tom Adams. (The three five-string pickers are backed by fiddler Richard Green, guitarist David Grier and bassist Sally Truitt.) The gang is touring behind the recent ”Rounder Banjo Extravaganza” live album, which featured all three pickers, showcased their remarkable musical skills and eclectic tastes and revealed some of the marvels this much-maligned instrument can perform. Trischka (one of the architects of the adventurous ”newgrass style” of acoustic bluegrass/country music and a former member of Skyline)
should reveal some of the more experimental sides of modern banjo music. Adams is a master of the traditional, locomotive bluegrass sound (having earned his stripes with the Johnson Mountain Boys and the Lynn Morris Band). Furtado (a two-time national banjo champion and former member of Laurie Lewis` Grant Street) mixes that traditional sound with jazz and Celtic influences.
Trip Shakespeare and the 27 Various, Saturday at the Metro: This Twin Cities twin bill is headlined by regular visitors and favorites in these parts, Trip Shakespeare. But while that band and its sweaty neo-psychedelic rock is the draw here, opening act the 27 Various merits a listen as well. Led by producer/multi-instrumentalis t Ed Ackerson, the 27 Various is still something of a well-kept Minneapolis secret despite several single releases and five albums to date, including ”Fine,” which was just released this fall. That latest long-player lives up to its title, steeped as it is in that wiry Minneapolis modern-pop sound that bands like the Replacements and Husker Du used to shake up alternative rock a few years back. Don`t be surprised if sometime soon the 27 Various returns as a headliner.
