Willie Nelson at the Hollywood Bowl

SOME years, concerts at the Hollywood Bowl become the highlight of the summer. I know I'll miss a lot of things about Los Angeles whenever we end up departing, but these night with the sun setting and the scent of eucalyptus from the canyon will be very near the top of the list.

This year, we've only been twice so far. We saw the fireworks on the 4th of July, a show at which I learned that Josh Groban is not the anti-Christ (and you can quote me on that.)

Our second visit was for Willie Nelson's show on Saturday night, which was devoted mostly to 1978's Stardust album. I know I'm not breaking any news to say that the show was damned good -- Willie has long been one of the most consistent major artists. Even with what at times could be heavy orchestration (conducted by Beck's father, who has a smile and body language eerily like that of his son), the richness of Willie's voice came across quite well. (The tones of his battered classical guitar, which makes Glenn Hansard's Takemine look brand new, came and went during the first song or so, but showed up quite well thereafter.)

Stardust, of course, was Willie's throwback standards record, a real about face after albums like The Red-Headed Stranger. We are now, 35 years after its release, about as far from Stardust's original appearance as it was from the American songbook -- "Blue Skies," "All of Me" -- that inspired it: It's doubly retro. The highlight for me may've been his reading of "Moonlight in Vermont." Some non-album tracks -- "All the Things You Are" -- were also strong. One of my favorite of his songs -- "Funny How Time Slips Away," the brilliance of which I was recently reminded by the L.A. band Spain -- seemed rushed. This is a number about regret and the perspective time offers. It needs room to breathe.

This said, that was about as good a show by an 80 year-old as any of us deserve. What a titan.

Texas troubadour Lyle Lovett opened. Your humble correspondent has been an admirer, in theory, of Lovett for a long time. But I've always wanted to like his recordings -- which represent an attention to detail, a worship of Townes Van Zandt, a literate take on the country-folk tradition, etc. -- more than I do.

The Bowl show really won me over. Part of it was Lovett's banter and stage presence -- here's someone who really loves doing this, and was especially honored to be opening for St. Willie. I loved his fingerpicking as well. But to large extent it was the way Lovett handled his band -- a bunch of great players, and everyone got room to take a brief solo on almost every song. It was like a great jazz band playing country -- Western swing at its best.

What the hell happened to the shuttle bus back to the LA Zoo, though? Something clearly went terribly wrong.

In Search of Ryan Adams

EVERY few years, Ryan Adams surprises me. He'll put out a song or album that reminds me what a goddam genius the self-destructive lad can be. 

He's someone I'm always on the verge of writing off as a  narcissistic showboat, or a pastiche artist, but he comes through with some of the most poignant and alive work in the entire alt-country tradition. It's a bit low-key for me, but last year's Ashes and Fire LP was one of those reminders, and some days I play the nine great songs on Cold Roses and just marvel at what a singer and songwriter the North Carolina native -- now long settled in Los Angles -- can be. 

I don't have nearly the same kind of roller-coaster relationship with the work of David Menconi, the longtime Raleigh News and Observer music critic, and frequent contributor to No Depression magazine. (Since I met him at South by Southwest, years ago, I've respected him for his knowledge of the tradition and his gift for clipped, distilled phrase-making.)

Menconi was among the first journos to notice Adams, and stayed on him during his early years with Whiskeytown and then as a solo artist in North Carolina. 

Those years, and the ones that came after, are the basis of Ryan Adams: Losering, A Story of Whiskeytown, Menconi's new book. It's the kind of short, well-reported musician's bio I wish we had more of. And it's the second in the American Music Series that Menconi is editing for the University of Texas Press.

Here is our recent Q&A on Ryan Adams.

You open the book with a night where you saw Ryan play at what was practically an open-mic in 1995. What struck you about his musicianship and performing style that first night?

Even in that informal a setting, Ryan’s raw talent was obvious. Precocious, too; he looked like a little kid, but his playing, singing and songwriting already seemed fully developed. And he was also remarkably mature in terms of expressing emotion. Every song, it really did sound like he put a little slice of his heart out there. He was remarkable.

The Ryan you met that night was already conscious of being a star. It seemed important to him from an early age, didn’t it?

Absolutely. His love for the music was also obvious, and he already conveyed a sense of swagger. He wanted to be big, larger than life, to matter. Plus he was just so enthusiastic about most everything, it was impossible not to be charmed. I thought so, anyway.

“He especially liked the rock clichés,” one musician and journalist said of him. How has that worked out over his career?

Way back when, that would manifest itself in Ryan adopting what one of his peers derisively called “rocker constumes” – dressing the rock-star part and carrying himself with a kind of Keith Richards vibe. During his solo era, he has spent entire albums aping his idols; “Gold” was Ryan doing a classic-rock playlist, “Rock N Roll” was him paying tribute to his new-wave favorites and so on. The results have been mixed, but he’s just so danged talented that pretty much everything he does is at least worth listening to.

How has Ryan seemed to have developed as an artist since, say, the first Whiskeytown recordings, or the beginning of his solo career with Heartbreaker?

My perspective, which I’m quite certain Ryan himself wouldn’t agree with, is that he has done his best work when he had something to say and peers to answer to. I don’t think it’s coincidental that his best record, Whiskeytown’s “Stranger’s Almanac,” was produced by a demanding taskmaster (Jim Scott) who kicked Ryan’s butt. I’m sure that was an unpleasant process, but the results were great. Ryan has done some fine work since then, but also a lot that sounds self-indulgent and unfocused. Last year’s “Ashes & Fire” was his best in years, so maybe he’s getting that focus back.

After covering him incessantly for years, you and Ryan had an odd falling out in 2001, and he’s not spoken to you since. How did that make the book harder, and how did you make up for that?

Ryan’s non-cooperation turned out to be less of an obstacle than I feared it might be. I felt like the most interesting part of his career was the Whiskeytown era, and I had voluminous archival material that I’d hung onto over the years (sometimes it pays to be a packrat). So his non-cooperation naturally moved the focus toward that period; and in some ways, I felt like it was a better book without the present-day Ryan in it. He changes his mind a lot and says numerous contradictory things, and I’m told his memories of that time aren’t terribly sharp. Anything he would have told me about those days probably would have been steeped in revisionist history.

For years it seemed like Ryan was going to either end up dead on the floor of a bar, or become bigger-than-Wilco huge. He seems less naturally suited to the middle ground, or to a hip, culty following of the kind Alejandro Escovedo or Gillian Welch have. Or is it just me?

Well, there is kind of an unrequited vibe about his career. Implosions of the band’s lineup and then the industry (the 1999 Universal/PolyGram merger) scuttled Whiskeytown’s chances; and then the record that was supposed to make him huge, 2001’s “Gold”…well, didn’t. At the same time, however, Ryan has a career that would be the envy of almost anyone. He can put out albums and sell into six figures, and play live as much as he wants while selling out 3,000-seat halls. In 2012, that’s about as good as it gets.

Tell us a bit about this American Music series you’re helming with Peter Blackstock of No Depression.

Glad you asked that! It’s being put out by University of Texas Press; and the rough thumbnail description is that if you can imagine a No Depression magazine feature about someone, then they might be a subject. Over time, we hope to broaden the subjects beyond Americana and alternative country and to have a wide array of authors. Peter and I are co-editors, and I’d liken our roles to record-company A&R people. We cast the nets among writers and artists, and bring suggested projects back to UT Press. They get final say since it’s their money, but we get a voice and a vote.

Don McLeese’s Dwight Yoakam bio was the first in the series, and Ryan is the second. Up next will be Merle Haggard by David Cantwell, and more are at various stages, including Los Lobos and the supergroup Flatlanders. I’m most excited about Kristin Hersh of Throwing Muses writing about the late great Vic Chesnutt.

What do you expect is next for Ryan Adams?

Well, “Ashes & Fire” was a good step back in the right direction, and it made me hope he was back. Since then he’s spent time doing a lot of different stuff – producing his wife (singer/actress Mandy Moore), producing/playing drums in the Lemonheads, recording with deadmau5, producing D-Generation. I’m sure he’s having the time of his life, and good for him. But…I think the cause of civilization and rock ’n’ roll would be better-served by Ryan bearing down and making his own record. Maybe he will. I hope so. Despite it all, I’m still a fan.

Colin Meloy on Gillian Welch

YESTERDAY I had this story on country/folk duo Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings, who perform in LA Thursday night.

One thing I did not have room for that in that article was a long quote given to me by Colin Meloy, who employed the two on The King is Dead, his latest record by the Decemberists. Meloy turns out to be a longtime fan -- here's his entire thought. Thanks to Meloy, whose last Decemberists show for several years we caught in Portland a few weeks back.

I was introduced to Gillian at Rockin' Rudy's, a very fine record store in Missoula, MT. I think a friend turned me on to her first record right after it came out. I was immediately smitten. It happens that I also spent the summer of '97 working in the vineyards of the Willamette Valley in Oregon and the song "One More Dollar" felt particularly auspicious. Tucker Martine and I were wanting to create a kind of vibe on The King is Dead that we had always loved in old country records -- the idea of pairing a male and female vocal really hot in the mix, like every song was a duet. I'd always loved Neil Young's record, Comes a Time, and was really taken by the fact that the late, great Nicolette Larson sang on nearly every song, lending a tone and tenor to the record that just wouldn't exist without her voice. We wanted to do something similar with The King is Dead. Gill and Dave very clearly work in a completely different way than many people I know. I get the feeling for all their love of simplicity and clarity comes from a kind of insanely finicky place. Which is funny; so many of her songs feel so off the cuff, so underthought. But there's a lot of thinking that goes on, I think, to get to that place. Like all great artists and musicians, she and Dave, as far as I can tell, are just great lovers of music -- of all sorts. Their collective voice tends toward the Americana/country side of things, but their hearts don't necessarily hew to just one thing. And it all makes perfect sense to me -- they are the bridge between Robyn Hitchcock and the Louvin Brothers. And if you think about it, that bridge isn't necessarily that long.

Refracting the Tradition with Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings

I DON'T think I've been this starstruck since I interviewed Martin Scorsese a few years back. Meeting Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings -- two of most distinctive and harmonically complex figures in the new acoustic movement -- was one of the thrills of the summer.

My story on the duo -- and recent years and a solo album have shown how important Rawlings contribution is -- runs today in the LA Times. (It precedes their show Thursday at the Henry Fonda Music Box.)

Part of what intrigues me about the two is the way they take the tradition of pre-rock Appalachian brother bands -- the Louvin Brothers, the Blue Sky Boys, the Delmore Brothers -- and cross them with a more modern harmonic language. It's all over the new record, The Harrow and the Harvest.

Rawlings, who is emerging one of the most individual guitarists of his generation, is steeped in old-time mountain music but is also informed by Gang of Four’s spiky post-punk, Johnny Marr's weeping riffs and Richard Thompson’s otherworldly chime. (Check out his recent LP, A Friend of a Friend, as Dave Rawlings Machine. The song "Ruby" and the cover of Neil Young's Cortez the Killer are good places to start.) His 1935 Epiphone archtop, often played with the capo us as high as the 9th or 10th fret, has lately become one of my favorite things to hear.

“If I could compare it sonically to ‘Time (The Revelator),’ ” he said abour Harrow, which he produced, “I’d say this record comes forward out of the speakers, and creates the atmosphere more in the space you’re in,” as opposed to what he calls the shy and “retiring” quality of the earlier album. “This record is more intimately recorded – we’re sitting around and gently playing the songs. The way we play when we’re not recording.”

Welch, who grew up on LA's Westside in the Reagan years and not in 1930s Appalachia, is sensitive about the issue of her authenticity.


In one key way, in fact, she had a pre-modern upbringing: While she grew up singing classic folk and country music, she never heard recordings of them: She knew the songs only through an oral tradition. Years later, she attended UC Santa Cruz, and was at first a bit lost, personally and musically – she sang briefly in front of a psychedelic surf band – but was exposed to old recordings by a bluegrass deejay housemate. 


“And I have this complete, strange epiphany,” she recalls. “I’m hearing these sounds I’ve never heard before, but they’re the songs I’ve known since I was as kid.” The experience turned her head around. “And then presto, we’re done. And then I’m just like every other person who just needed a record player, these records and a door that locked.”

Jo Nesbo and Nordic Noir

FOR years now we've been hearing about a charismatic Norwegian crime writer whose novels were plotted with verve and driven by a weirdly compelling alcoholic detective. With the success of  Stieg Larsson's Girl trilogy, the time may be ripe for Jo Nesbo, whose sometimes horrifying new novel, The Snowman, kicks ass.

I spoke to Nesbo from his home in Oslo recently for a profile in this Sunday's Los Angeles Times. We had a lot to talk about. Besides the writer Jim Thompson -- whose The Killer Inside Me inspired him to become a crime novelist -- Nesbo and this blog share an interest in American alt-country: He told me about a club in '80s Oslo that brought American cowpunk bands, and at least once, R.E.M., to town. (His novel namechecks Ryan Adams, Gillian Welch, David Rawlings and Willie Nelson.) He's also into graphic novelist Frank Miller.

Will Nesbo repeat the stateside success of Larsson, or even Henning Mankell? His publisher, Knopf, is certainly hoping so. When I asked Nesbo if he felt much in common with other Scandinavian noir writers, he told me, "Not really. I mean, they're writers. But not because they write crime of because they're Scandinavian. I do admire Karin Fossum -- she writes great prose, it's beautiful to read her. I think we're all very different writers. When I started writing crime fiction, I hadn't read any of the Swedish crime writers."

A lot of money rides on the question of whether American readers agree.

Nesbo is in LA next Tuesday.

The Avett Brothers' Country Roots

SCOTT Avett plays his banjo like Will Sergeant from Echo and the Bunnymen played guitar. That's what the Avett Bros. manager thought the first time he saw this North Carolina band, which is both deeply rooted in Americana and on its own trip.


ALT-COUNTRY heroes The Avett Bros. are in town tonight, Oct. 1, at the Nokia Theater. I spoke to Scott and manager Rolph Ramseur for this story in today's LATimes.


I was a bit late coming to these guys, but they remind me in some ways of The Band in their attempt to connect rock with old-time music. Scott was as convincingly sincere and humble as any musician I've spoken to. (I can -- poorly -- play a few of their songs on guitar, like "Murder in the City" and "Will You Return".)


Here he told me how he discovered the banjo, which came later than you'd think:


"We were just totally into hard rock then — we were in a skate-punk scene," he says. "I wanted something ironic. And when I started playing street corners, I could hear this thing just project. We went all over the country, all the way to San Francisco and Seattle, and that banjo just projects down the street!"

The Return of Levon Helm

LAST night I was lucky enough to catch Levon Helm, former drummer for The Band and one of the great comeback stories in rock music. The show was about as stirring as any I've seen lately, and ended as a kind of celebration of American roots music in its many guises and -- especially thanks to an appearance by Steve Earle -- made explicit Helm's role as a father figure to the alt-country movement.

Helm, who led a 11-piece band complete with horn section, opened with "Ophelia" and played a number of Band classics ("The Shape I'm In," "It Makes No Difference") as well as Leadbelly's "Bourgeois Blues," Dylan's "Blind Willie McTell," and some New Orleans number led by the pianist playing in a Professor Longhair/ James Booker style.

He's still suffering some of the effects of throat cancer, so the Arkansas-born Helm sang only a few the songs. Even in the old days of the Band,  of course, Helm was one of several singers, and only the leader of the group in a symbolic sense, since he was the only American in this group dedicated to reviving lost strains of American music. And the group, which was built out of the Midnight Rambles held at his Woodstock farm, featured several good singers, with fiddler/guitarist Larry Campbell often taking the lead.

The big surprise for me was Steve Earle. I've always respected the gruff troubadour's songwriting genius and politicized anger -- it's hard to disagree with his anti-corporate point of view in these troubled times -- but found him sometimes too harsh for my taste. Last night he played on only a few songs -- including a stirring number from a recent Helm record and the Stones classic "Sweet Virginia" -- and he was biting and gracious in equal measure: I'll see the dude again anytime.

The encore brought Earle back, as well as -- you guessed it -- Harry Dean Stanton, to perform big, moving versions of "The Weight" and "I Shall Be Released." Punk and post-punk bands made fun of this sort of thing, but rarely has it seemed more justified.

Jenny Lewis, best known for her leadership of Rilo Kiley, warmed up for Helm after an opening spot for Jim Bianco (which I missed.) Lewis was better than expected, performing in front of a 7-piece band with a combination of sultriness and indie diffidence almost shading into hostility. Her new song, "Just One of the Boys," was among the best, and her band closed with a lovely a capella song that made a perfect final note before Helm's appearance.

This was a show about an important musician who has not performed in LA in three decades, who has beaten what could have been a fatal disease and outlived several members of a star-crossed group. It's very hard to explain what the sensation was of seeing this 70-year-old demigod drumming, playing mandolin, straining to sing his old songs. It was -- a term I almost never use -- an evening of triumph, and the kind of thing where you really had to be there. I'm very glad I was.

The Eloquent Ache of Joe Pernice

THERE are only a handful of musicians of whose work I own virtually every release. Among this group is Joe Pernice, whose recordings with alt-country band Scud Mountain Boys, chamber-pop band the Pernice Brothers and assorted side projects share an easy melodic sense, knack for both American-roots and British Invasion production styles and an aching voice that recalls the Zombies.

I still remember hearing the first Pernice Bros. record at a coffee shop on Beverly and was immediately launched into seeking out his collected works.

Pernice, whose last album was the very fine covers-heavy "soundtrack" to his novel It Feels So Good When I Stop, has just released the first Pernice Bros. LP in four years, Goodbye, Killer. (That's LA drummer/savant Ric Menck on Joe's left.)

While this blog is largely devoted to West Coast culture, there are times I am forced to admit that not everything of worth comes from our shores. The Massachusetts-reared, Toronto-dwelling Pernice is one of those rare cases -- here is my Q+A with him.

Q: At least half of this album feels more rustic than what we're used to from Pernice Bros. records, with more acoustic instruments and even electric songs like "The Loving Kind" using simpler, less compressed production.

A: The songs usually dictate the way they want to be done. You mess around with them some, but they suggest strongly the way they want to be done. With this record we were very unyielding on keeping it as spare as possible. We wanted to do it with as little clutter as possible. We wanted the songs to have rhythm, and to elevate at certain points, but we threw out everything that wasn't necessary.

One of the advantages of having fewer instruments is you let them breathe, they don't have to compete with each other.

Q: It sounds like you enjoy production and the technical side of making records, not just the songwriting you're associated with.

A: Production, I love -- making decisions about arrangements and what comes in at certain points. From an engineering standpoint, it puts me to sleep. But I love making decisions -- because you can't tell what it sounds like until you hear it.

Q: You've got a real talent for melodies: They always resolve in a satisfying way, but not always the way a listener expects. That can't be easy.

A: There's not a ton of thought involved. I hear things, I get an idea for a melody that grows out of something else. I've almost never had a whole melody come out of the blue. It grows out of fumbling around on a guitar. I really like doing it -- I really like banging on a guitar, hearing a melody, chasing it down and seeing where I can go with it.

Q: Who are some of your favorite melodists?

A: Burt Bacharach, Elvis Costello, Ray Davies, the Beatles -- how can you not like them? -- Dusty in Memphis, Big Star, Brian Wilson, Carole King. "Will You Still Love me Tomorrow?" -- was there life before that song?

Q: The Pernice Bros. sometimes build songs around pop culture figures -- Bjorn Borg, the Clash -- and now Jacqueline Susann.

A: Oh, that's an erection song. It's more about the girl who reads "Ford Maddox Ford and Jacqueline Susann." That's my ideal.

Pernice promises he will visit the West Coast this year -- "California has been good to me" -- so watch this space.

Legends of the High Desert

A few weeks back I had the pleasure to visit Joshua Tree with my wife and son. I guess for some people the place invokes U2, but it always makes me think of Gram Parsons and his hippie/ Dylanesque updating of the high-lonesome sound.

Here is my piece that runs in this Sundays' LATimes. It's both a meditation on the power of music and a trip-with-kids story. It's also one of the few trips I've taken as an adult that I have really screwed up, at least the Pioneertown part. (I keep thinking of Sam Shepard's play "True West" whenever I am in its faux-Wild West environs.)

A lot of fun to be out in the desert with Ian and his 3-year-old's perceptions.

I look forward to going back and seeing a show at Pappy and Harriet's, where Lucinda Williams, Jim Lauderdale and others play regularly. (The place seems to be stretching beyond country and alt-country these days: England's Arctic Monkeys played a post-Coachella show there a few days after we left.)

I'll fill out this post shortly.

Artifice and Artlessness With Bonnie Prince Billy

The other night I accepted an invitation to see the Kentucky singer-songwriter Bonnie "Prince" Billy at McCabe’s Guitar Shop. I came out of the show realizing that this enigmatic figure, whose work I’ve known for about 15 years, is vastly more talented as well as much weirder than I had ever thought.

First, the show: The artist formerly known as Will Oldham appeared in McCabe’s 150-seat room, lined with string instruments, with sidekick Emmett Kelly. I would happily pay to see the baby-faced, angelic-voiced Kelly play his understated mix of folk, acoustic country and classical guitar solo.

Oldham, wearing a plaid shirt, khakis he kept rolling up and a pair of slippers without socks, has to be seen to be believed. With his long, scraggly beard, weathered voice and devotion to the Appalachian folk tradition, he seems like the kind of cat who would be obsessed with “authenticity” and the plainspoken quality of mountain and hill music. I expected him to sit in his chair and brood.

But Oldham, a trained actor who appeared as an earnest boy preacher in John Sayles Matewan, has the body language and delivery of a Shakespearean. He’s a recluse who refuses to give interviews to his hometown paper, but onstage he was both gracious and weirdly excited. I’ve rarely seen an indie artist so committed to his material. Between the actorly impulse, the supposed naive quality of rustic music, and the multiple monikers he’s used – I think Oldham was calling himself Palace Brothers when I first encountered him -- there’s a weird play on artifice and artlessness going on here. (Is it all an act? A friend who lives in Louisville talks about seeing him in slovenly dress around the coffee shops, looking like an escaped mental patient, and Oldham himself mentioned that he’d glimpsed himself in the dressing room mirror and thought, “Who is that homeless person?”)

The other thing: Oldham’s voice is as rich an instrument as I’ve ever heard. It sounds good on record – including the new “The Wonder Show of the World,” recorded with Kelly – but in that tiny room it was a whole other thing entirely, raw and piney but with great emotional shading. He opened with the album’s first track, “Troublesome Houses,” singing while Kelly played guitar, and then played a song he called “ a Norwegian folk song. It was written by Norwegian folks.” Both were tense and devastating.

Well, I could go on from here but the magic and intimacy of the night will be hard to recapture. I only hope this is one of those shows McCabe’s chose to record. (The second night’s show, apparently, was recorded without mics, which Oldham said he prefers.) The album is my favorite by him in years, and pretty stripped down, but like much acoustic studio recordings it is a little overproduced and some songs have an instrument or voice too many.

One of the advantage of seeing a show there is being able to check out the instruments and book collection on the way in and out. I was able to strum Lowden’s Richard Thompson model acoustic guitar (!), and picked up an old Leadbelly songbook put together my Lomax and Mo Asch. Also met and spoke to Lincoln, who manages the shows, very cool guy and a serious music lover. In any case, quite a night and I will return to this shrine to the strummed and plucked as soon as I can.

Johnny Cash It Is

GIVEN the people who seem to follow my blog, I expected Gram Parsons or Townes Van Zandt -- both key figures in that transition from country to alt-country -- to run away with this poll.

But Johnny Cash, whose career was both driven and nearly undermined by his struggles with alcohol, drugs, politics and Christianity, comes out on top. He is, to my ear, the most complicated of his generation of country and rockabilly musicians.

I should add, as one learned commentator has already mentioned, Cash does not tower over the competition simply as a songwriter. Most of his great songs were done by the time he recorded the Sun Sessions (though I am partial to a song recorded later called "I Still Miss Someone" that both Dylan and Richard Thompson favor.) His late-life resurgence, fueled by Rick Rubin and the American Recordings, came almost entirely from songs written by others, from Beck, the band Spain, Sheryl Crow, as well as traditional songs. (I love the Cash disc, part of an American box set, My Mother's Hymn Book.)

But the whole package of Cash, as singer, as performer, as symbol of guts and integrity, proved overpowering to the readers of The Misread City. His singing can make a poem of Rod McKuen's sound profound (as he did on "Love's Been Good to Me.)

I should add that while I adore Cash, new and old, I am a Townes man myself, and have strong feelings for some songs of Parsons -- "Hickory Wind" and "She" most obviously. As some pointed out, Parson's was active so briefly that it's hard to know what kind of body of work he would have produced.

The poll, like all of mine, required I leave some people out -- Dolly Parton, John Prine, Alejandro Escovedo, Jimmy Webb, Kristofferson, others. But I feel strongly that a number of very serious talents were on the resulting list.

To break it down: Cash got a bit more than 1/3 of votes, Willie Nelson got about a third, and Townes (photo, right) a hair less than a third. Merle Haggard, who was leading in the poll's early days, came in next, while Lucinda Williams and Gram lagged into last place. (Parsons in last place? Sheesh!) Some thought Willie, because of records like Red Headed Stranger, should be the winner hands down, and I can't disagree strenuously with that -- I love his '70s records.

Participants were allowed to cast votes for more than one artist. And I limited this to post-Hank Williams since Hank would surely run away with this as surely as Dylan would take a best rock songwriter poll.

More on these American originals shortly. My black hat is off to the late Mr. Cash today.

Neil Halstead and Mojave 3

ONE of the most undersung men in british rock music turns 39 today -- take a bow neil halstead!

halstead has made an unusual transition -- he first became known as leader of the shoegaze combo slowdive in the late 80s... they are sometimes compared to my bloody valentine and ride. that is a wonderful chapter in english rock, but to me he got better with his next band.

mojave 3 -- whose name was suggested by angeleno indie scholar wendy fonarow, a friend of the group and singer rachel goswell -- marked a huge step forward. here the group came up with the cornwall/english equivalent of america's alt-country movement, merging nick drake mystery with pedal-steel and a western-shirt aesthetic. several of their records are near-masterpieces, and their last, "puzzles like you," from 2006, is excellent even if it's a bit less gentle. (here is what may be my fave mo3 song, "some kinda angel"; here is the quieter "love songs on the radio.")

the most recent halstead-related release comes from his solo career -- the band is not exactly broken up but is on hiatus. that's "oh! mighty engine," maybe the mellowest thing he's done. as you can see here. it's rooted more firmly than ever in brit folk, with bert jansch as another point of departure. somehow in his music i often hear the breezy beauty of the southwest english landcape. anyway, keep up the good work, mate.

Photo credit: Brushfire Records

Audrey Hepburn Vs. Wilco

This blog has held two recent polls, which i've been meaning to report back on.

the first was on "best audrey hepburn film." this idea was suggested by my old man, who introduced me to her movies way back when, and i was glad to have reason to include one of my favorite actresses of all time, who defined each film she was in with class, intelligence and self-possession. (i like her so much i even briefly went out with an absolutely crazy lass in the 90s largely because her name was audrey.)

so the winner, by a pretty big margin, was "breakfast at tiffany's" -- no surprise. this italian poster used to hang in my old apt. the runner up was "roman holiday" (anyone remember the LA opera staging in homage to the film?) tho several other films, including the now obscure/cult "two for the road," which i must admit i've never seen but which is in the mail to me, also drew support.

the torrent of wilco related events -- new album, tour, lots of press coverage, even an interview by yours truly -- led to a poll on best wilco album. the winner, of course, was the star-crossed but eventually triumphant, cryptic and forceful "yankee hotel foxtrot," drawing a large percentage (63%) of votes.

interestingly, the record i and many others discovered wilco with -- the rootsy double-cd "being there" -- drew about a third the votes as "yankee." that earlier record changed my life when i heard it as a 20-something new englander not yet persuaded by the alt-country revolution. (by coincidence, 3,000 miles away, a young lady much saner than my audrey was reviewing "being there" for the LA times and would go on to become my wife.)

so whichever phase you prefer, hats off to one of america's greatest bands and one of cinema's real class acts.