Let It Shine

What’s a beatnik?” My young friend Emily, a Medill senior, asked me recently. We were discussing Halloween costumes, and I mentioned that back in the late ’50s I loved to dress up as a beatnik on Halloween: tight black clothes, heavy black eyeliner, and long black hair (courtesy of my mother’s long black scarf). Beatniks predated hippies — they unwittingly spearheaded the counterculture movement that rebelled against political conservatism and the Vietnam War. Out of this social and political upheaval in American culture came some wonderful music.

Odetta is one of the most powerful performers to emerge from that era. Her latest release, I’m Gonna Let It Shine: A Concert For The Holidays (MC), is a live recording at New York’s Fordham University, broadcast on public radio WFUV. Her second Christmas album in 17 years, I’m Gonna Let It Shine is an antidote for our world now. “These songs,” she says, “come out of difficult times, and since the difficult times haven’t been fixed, the songs are still here for us.” She chose to do a live album because she wanted to capture the dynamic between herself and the audience.

Odetta has recorded many of these songs on past albums, but the lure of I’m Gonna Let It Shine is its significance at this point in time. If we ever need healing, it is now. Odetta opens her show by reading a segment of a poem by peace activist and spiritualist Marianne Williamson called “Our Deepest Fear.” Although it is meant to empower, it has eerie similarities to the “Desiderata” poem in the “You are a child of God” vein with new age overtones, which was parodied mightily in the ’70s.

But then Odetta gets down to it. She launches into a spirited version of “This Little Light Of Mine,” with special guests The Holmes Brothers, who also join her on “Down By The Riverside.” She joyfully praises Jesus in songs derived from the African American Christmas tradition singing, a cappella, or accompanied by pianist Seth Farber. Her “Freedom Trilogy” revisits spirituals of the Civil Rights Movement, such as “Oh Freedom,” “Come And Go With Me To That Land,” and “I’m On My Way.” Odetta introduces her closing song, “Midnight Special,” by relating the lyrics of Leadbelly’s penitentiary blues to the prison practices of the “Bush boys” who “don’t believe in pardons.” Informative liner notes by Sweet Honey In The Rock founder Bernice Johnson Reagon complete this heartwarming holiday release.

NEW RELEASES: On one of those blustery winter nights when you want to make it out to hear live blues, but it’s just too cold, pop Live Wire (NorthernBlues), a new release by Chris Beard into your CD player, light a cigarette, grab a beer, and relax at home instead. The first six tracks are recorded live at the Kingston Mines and Grand Rapids’ Blues At The Mall, and put you squarely in a smoky bar. Beard is a singer/guitarist whose musical heroes are Luther Allison, Buddy Guy, Son Seals, and Albert Collins. A thoroughly modern player, Beard is a good guitarist, but he needs to find a style of his own. He wrote most of the songs on the CD, which also includes covers by guitarist Chris Cain, producer/songwriter Dennis Walker, and the moving “Tribute To Luther Allison” by Lucky Peterson. Beard’s backing band is tight throughout and the studio tracks include some funky grooves. A mellow bass solo by Marvin Parker on “It’s Over,” the last live track is mysteriously truncated . . . Funky grooves and soul abound on Shake It Down, by Memphis newcomer Lorraine Turner (Ecko). Turner is a Southern soul singer who has been compared to Aretha and Stax diva Shirley Brown. The title track is the ultimate party tune, in a smooth, sexy bump ‘n’ grind kind of way . . . Soul Blues Hits, Vol. 3 (Ecko) is a Southern soul compilation featuring tracks by Ecko artists Denise LaSalle, Don Covay, Lee Shot Williams, and others. Same title completely different CD, Shake It Down (ravendesmondsongs) is the latest from local acoustic blues duo Raven Desmond. Frank Raven (harp) and Jim Desmond (guitar) are Chicago stalwarts, with a Zappa-esque bent. Formerly songwriters and co-leaders of the progressive blues group Blue Watusis, in their current incarnation, they return to the roots of the blues, with some wacky ’60s-style acoustic and electric tunes.

UPCOMING RELEASES: Blues rocker Kenny Wayne Shepherd plays a 21st century Alan Lomax, taking a portable recording studio and the band Double Trouble on the road to document the “purity and power” of the blues and record it all for a DVD called 10 Days Out (Blues From The Backroads) (Reprise). Nice footage of B.B. King, Hubert Sumlin, Gatemouth Brown, Etta Baker, and others, but the tired concept that the blues is a relic of the past rather than a living entity is overdone. Just ask the musicians who play nightly in Chicago clubs and around the world. Shepherd gets one thing right — he plays on the uniquely American perception that to be a success in the blues you have to be young and blond, or old and African American.

A FINAL NOTE: Just wanted to thank Kevin Toelle for 12 years of straightahead and informative blues reporting. You provided a monthly shot in the arm for the blues fan that was seeking informative and upbeat reviews about all things blues. I hope to carry on in that tradition, and add a little something of my own.

— Beverly Zeldin-Palmer

Category: Monthly, Sweet Home