Review: Johnny Otis: 
R&B’s conscience, 
‘black by persuasion’

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Not long after Pete Seeger galvanized American progressives with folk music, and years before Bob Dylan brought social issues to the forefront of rock music, Johnny Otis was, to borrow a civil-rights era phrase, a “drum major for justice” in a cultural context.
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Seattle: For 25 days, the capital of movies


The Seattle International Film Festival doesn’t have the global glitz of Cannes or the rough-country-chic panache of Sundance and Telluride, but for years now, it’s gone quietly about its business becoming the biggest film festival in the country.


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Philly: Seeking the perfect cheesesteak

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Few foods are unified with a specific location quite like the Philadelphia cheesesteak. In The Daily Beast, writer Tom McAllister surveys the field and weighs the value of ingredients, location and clientele in creating the populist sandwich that typifies the City of Brotherly Love.
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Leonardo DiCaprio in ‘Inception’: It’s all in your mind. In Movies >

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Upfronts Week: Winners and others

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AOL’s Bob Sassone gets busy handicapping the best (and maybe not-so-best) new series slated for the fall TV season


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Going back into 'Exile'

ROLLING STONES
EXILE ON MAIN ST

And I’m lookin’ out my window baby
And I’m standing by my door
Have you ever had the feeling baby
That you been here before?
— “I’m Not Signifying”

MICHAEL E. ROSS 
05.21.2010

In May 1972, back when the Rolling Stones could lay legitimate claim to being the best rock and roll band on the planet, it was difficult to see where “Exile on Main St” belonged in the group’s catalog, much less the rock canon. A year or so after “Sticky Fingers” and the group’s launch of its own label, in the midst of internal dissension and Keith Richards’ persistent drug problems, and with the music industry making the first real push to being an Industry, it seemed to be as hard for the Stones to get a handle on anything as it was for a fickle, changing public to grasp the intention of the Stones. Or so it seemed.
What a difference tree-ring time makes. We can see clearly now how “Exile on Main St” distills their rough, ragged, streetwise greatness. They appeared to be the sloppiest fricking rock band around, all rough edges and scruffy angles, three chords and sharp elbows, songs like barbed wire, their words rife with danger and passion, debauch and rage. In this is their genius — to have transmuted the base metals of rock, the blues and the singularly keen edge of life in the postwar age into a stunning document by turns historical and contemporary, raw and refined, braggart and confessional, sprawling and precise: one of the greatest recordings in the history of rock.

Thirty-eight years after it was released, the band has re-released the original 18-track album remastered, along with 10 unreleased tracks. And of course there’re other options: the obligatory mondo package of CDs, DVD, artwork and ephemera for the diehard collector.

The big attraction is the 10 “bonus” tracks added to the original “Exile” lineup; their addition is being marketed (in typical Stones fashion) with portent, as if it were the Eleventh through Twentieth Commandments Moses brought down after a second trip to the Mount. But hearing these additional songs against the totality of the original album, it’s striking how, in ways you don’t expect until you’ve heard them, they do nothing more — can do nothing more — than reinforce our sense of the power of the original article.

◊ ◊ ◊

Some of the birth of “Exile” occurred in one of those classic “forged in the crucible” occasions. From July to November 1971, the Stones, literally made tax exiles due to the crushing British tax laws of the era, decamped to Nellcôte, a French villa then owned by Keith Richards and partly converted to a recording studio. The time at Nellcôte gave the Stones, numerous friends, fellow musicians and associates both privacy and an expansive physical laboratory for various indulgences, musical and otherwise.

The music that resulted from that voluntary rock ‘n’ roll incarceration, and from earlier sessions recorded elsewhere, has stood the test of time; the bonus tracks (the focus of this piece) are novel additions to our sense of how EOMS came to be, but partly because of how long it’s taken for them to see the light of day, it’s easier to hear some of these tracks in the context of the Stones’ next phase or an earlier one, rather than in the context of the classic we’ve known and partied with all these years.

When you consider that Jagger recorded new vocals over instrumental tracks on the bonus disc, it’s clear the Stones hope to lift this reissue beyond being just a revisitation of an old sound; with tracks whose vocals and lyrics leapfrog in and out of a logical chronology, there’s an attempt to infuse the past with the present. Jagger and company have often used their vaults of unreleased music as artist’s canvas, as motion picture, and as their own personal TARDIS, a la the time machine of “Doctor Who”: releasing records that seek to defy the convenience of chronology for its own sake. Sometimes it works, sometimes not so much.

◊ ◊ ◊

For example, “Pass the Wine (Sophia Loren),” which opens the bonus disc, has a drive and a vaguely Latin ethnicity that feels like New York City in the late 70’s, to these ears dovetailing more with the Stones of “Some Girls” and “Tattoo You,” both recorded some years after “Exile.”

On “So Divine (Aladdin Story),” the first notes — a lick copied from the opening of “Paint It Black” (from 1966) — lead into a moody, ethereal melody possessed of an arresting exoticism and a hazy languidity that feel like something native to “Sticky Fingers.”

“Following the River” – a Stones approach to the classic break-up song — bears some of Jagger’s most heartfelt lyrics; the arc of the monologue in the lyrics feels real; not the rant of a millionaire registering a complaint with his latest conquest, but the real and lamented end of a relationship. It acquires additional resonance when you consider Jagger added the lyrics and vocals years later, when the fading of love’s glory has presumably taken on more depth and meaning than it did when he was in his prime.

The bonus album ends with “Title 5,” an R&B-flavored instrumental rave-up featuring Richards, founding bass player Bill Wyman, and drummer Charlie Watts, a song that’s diverting in its reveal of the relationship between Watts and Wyman as the group’s rhythmic anchors.

But to my ears, two bonus tracks early in the lineup —“Plundered My Soul” and “I’m Not Signifying” — seem to truly emerge organically from the “Exile” sessions, in spirit if not in specifics. The first of these is Jagger in full-throated she-done-me-wrong mode, with a soulful (and recent) vocal delivery undimmed by the years.

“I’m Not Signifying” is stealthier in its strength. Building from a terrific piano riff by the late, great Nicky Hopkins, the Stones weigh in slowly but powerfully. Punctuated by the horns section of Bobby Keys and Jim Price, “Signifying” swings into the kind of bluesy shuffle that characterizes so much of “Exile’s” original mood.

◊ ◊ ◊

There are some disappointments: It’s safe to say “Good Time Women” either inspires or is inspired by “Tumblin’ Dice.” We can’t know which came first, or whether or not “Good Time Women” was a test drive for “Tumbling Dice.” As it is, and either way, you can vocally superimpose the vocal phrasing and lyrics of that rock classic on this new track and not miss a beat.

The alternate version of “Loving Cup,” deliberate to a fault and recorded before the bunkering at Nellcôte, has none of the romp and bite of the classic version.

Likewise, the alternate take of “Soul Survivor” is something of a throwaway, with Keith Richards’ lyrical meandering, there’s none of the narrative focus that could make this rough draft more than a footnote. He recognizes how much of a discard this version is when he starts saying “et cetera, et cetera,” where the real lyrics would be (and maybe already were) on the gold-standard version.

Et cetera indeed. Keith’s offhand phrase distills one of my reactions to the “Exile” reissue; the bonus tracks themselves seem to reinforce their own “et cetera”-ness. They’re music out of context, songs whose willful rattling of the comforts of chronology finally come to frustrate any sense of organically belonging here at all.

Or maybe it’s just hard to imagine the Stones improving on the spark and velocity of ”Rip This Joint,” “Rocks Off,” “All Down the Line,” “Happy” and “Tumbling Dice — then and now the emotional tentpoles of “Exile.” The fact of when and how the original “Exile” tracks were recorded — or whether the “forged in the crucible of Nellcôte” narrative is even valid — pales in comparison with what they’ve come to mean after a generation of scrutiny and exegesis.

They’ve held up after all these years because their sense of risk, of struggle and even danger, typifies not just rock’s essential core but also the essence of modern times, the risk and danger and struggle inherent in the world we live in.

◊ ◊ ◊

Richards’ deepening heroin addiction, Mick Taylor’s departure and Jagger’s social climbing distractions would become some of the forces that seemed to pull the Stones apart by the early 70’s. You can make the case that the band never fully, creatively coalesced again until 1978, with the release of “Some Girls” — an album whose raw, unvarnished production values were much like those of “Exile” six years before.

You can’t help but wonder what else we haven’t heard (yet?) from the “Exile” period. It’s been reported, but maybe too easily forgotten, that Gram Parsons, former member of the Byrds and founder of the Flying Burrito Brothers, stayed at Nellcôte before the “Exile” sessions began.

In his excellent 1983 biography of the Stones, the musicologist and journalist Robert Palmer (a former colleague of mine at The New York Times) wrote of Parsons’ relationship with Richards:

“Parsons ... taught Keith the songs, the sad inflections and other expressive fine points of country & western and particularly honky-tonk music. Parsons stayed at Nellcôte for months, playing informal duets with Keith almost every day.”

Parsons wasn’t credited for a note of music on the “Exile” reissue. A tantalizing idea: Were any of those “informal duets” ever captured on tape?

◊ ◊ ◊

In the stripped-down version of the reissue, without the bells and whistles of the special edition, is a photo booklet that shows the Stones in rehearsal — the closeness, the relentless intimacy, the sweat and stink of the creative process underway, absent the bells and whistles of celebrity.

More than anything else, this is the value of the new improved “Exile,” not only as a musical portrait of a great band as it literally evolved and bloomed in a veritable hothouse in the south of France, but also as a freshly burnished historical artifact, a (slightly) wider window on what we’ve already heard and witnessed and celebrated for literally generations, in arenas and dorm rooms and living rooms and bedrooms, lighters aloft, glasses raised, bongs afire, passions ablaze.

Why does “Exile” persist in the culture, the memory, the heart and soul? It’s rock and roll at its highest state of grandeur, which ultimately means reflecting not so much grandeur as recognizing the weight of the world and our collective intent to endure that weight, to strive for indomitability, to be “soul survivors” in spite of everything (or maybe because of everything). Thirty-eight years after the original fact, that’s the triumph of “Exile.”

And if you’re still around to hear it, congratulations. It’s your triumph, too.

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Michael E. Ross is the editor of Culcha.

Six years of getting (and not getting) ‘Lost’

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As ABC’s celebrated and confusing series winds down to its finale on Sunday, March 23, a group of PopMatters writers weighs in to put the groundbreaking show and its appeal into perspective, as journalists and as undying fans.


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Cannes 2010: Rise of the unsung stars


Woody Allen’s newest project can be expected to draw a crowd and Russell Crowe’s revisionist Robin Hood will win a strong following. But at this year’s model of the Cannes Film Festival, the work of emerging filmmakers — relative unknowns — will be front and center.
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It was 40 years ago (last week)

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All due props: On May 8, 1970, the Beatles released “Let It Be,” what would be their final album, and a record that’s achieved a lofty, almost mythic status despite the acrimonious, painful, personal crises that attended its creation, and the breakup of its creative entity. Brothers Laurence Peters and Mike Peters, writing in Pop Matters, look back at the genesis and the legacy of one of rock's true masterworks.

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Lena Horne (1917-2010)

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Lena Mary Calhoun Horne died on Sunday night at New York-Presbyterian /Weill Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan. There was no sun up in the sky. The skies over New York that evening alternated between cloudy and clear; there was no stormy weather to speak of. But rain fell just the same, well disguised as sadness.



She was a singer, an actress and a moral force, as central to the inner life and the conscience of American society as Jackie Robinson and Martin Luther King. In a time when African Americans were under siege for their identity, she represented. She stood for something. She didn’t back down. 

She won Tony awards. She won Grammy awards. She won an Emmy and a doctorate from Howard University. She was one of the rare entertainers with two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for movies, the other for recordings. She had two children and a thousand million fans. She was 92 years young. And she forgot more about being a Class Act than any of us will ever know.
                                                           Appreciations, in Music >>>

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U.K.: The Lazarus Effect



Bono, Penelope Cruz, Common, Gabourey Sidibe, Brad Pitt, Don Cheadle, Hugh Jackman and others are front and center in a new (RED) campaign video, on behalf of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. This video, meant for consumption in the U.K., states the cost of doing something big: “20p,” the equivalent of 40 cents American — the daily cost of two pills that can dramatically prolong the lives of people who are HIV positive. But the U.S. shouldn’t feel left out; there’s a 40-cent version circulating stateside (it just aired on CNN). Speaks plainly enough: Maybe two dozen celebrities looking for 40 cents from everyone in the world, over and over. Maybe never have so many gathered in a video to ask for so little to do so much.

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This just in: ‘Iron Man 2’ is a hit

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It’s Iron Man’s weekend, we just buy the tickets. According to EW.com, at least $50 million worth. So far. And EW says the sequel starring Robert Downey Jr., Don Cheadle, Gwyneth Paltrow, Scarlet Johanssen and Mickey Rourke has earned an A from Cinemascore, “meaning it should hold in well for some time.” Like we couldn’t see that coming.




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Lynn Redgrave is laid to rest (The Huffington Post)

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Tweeting the drum

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A new report on Twitter usage by Edison Research and Arbitron reveals, among other things, that the service is "disproportionately popular with African-Americans." The study finds that 24 percent of the 17 million Americans "tweeting" at any given time are African-American, "which is approximately double the percentage of African-Americans in the current U.S. population."                More in Media >>>

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Newsweek on the block

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The Washington Post Company is selling Newsweek, its 77-year-old weekly news magazine, The Associated Press reported today. It’s the latest sign of the struggles of print publications working hard to remain relevant — and profitable — in the age of the 24/7, Internet-driven news cycle.

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George Clooney is 'The American.' Watch your back. In Movies >

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Lynn Redgrave dies at 67

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Lynn Redgrave, the celebrated Golden Globe-winning British actress who performed the work of playwrights, and a playwright whose own work plumbed the essence of her famous family and herself, died of cancer on Sunday at her home in Connecticut. She was 67 years old.   
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Big reveal for a new 'Meet the Press'

MICHAEL E. ROSS | 05.03.2010

"In television, this is what we do: We evolve," said David Gregory, the moderator of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” on Sunday, by way of his big reveal of his program's extreme makeover.

Longtime viewers of MTP got a sleek, burnished eyeful over the weekend when they tuned in to watch the long-running Sunday morning political news show, and witness a cosmetic change that visually reflects the shift in the program’s leadership, and maybe even a bid for a new audience.

For years now, the MTP set has underwhelmed, with the blue, gold & white color scheme of the show’s logo displayed on any number of monitors behind the guests, who sat at a small table at the center of the seat, huddled like participants in a focus group. Regardless of the gravity of whoever appeared was on the show, the MTP visuals always looked a little airless and confined, befitting a show shot in a studio in Washington.

What a difference 139 days make. The show’s new makeover, formally unveiled on Sunday and the first since March 1996, reveals a set that largely does away with visible monitors, trading that quasi-high-tech look for a more studied, bookish ambience. The sleek new set, seemingly big enough for a touch football game, is lined with crowded bookshelves meant to convey a more studious, cerebral tone. The new digs were accompanied by cleaner on-screen graphics and a new logo (balanced on the Capitol dome in MTP's new open).

Conspicuous in a preview last week, perched in a high place on one of those bookshelves, is a picture of Tim Russert, the late veteran journalist, longtime moderator of MTP and the one generally given credit for bringing the program — at 62 years old and counting the longest-running program in television history — back from a status as a moribund also-ran on the Sunday morning talk shows.

The moment of the moment all caught up to David Gregory, Russert’s eventual replacement as MTP moderator and his friend, when he choked up at a reception after Sunday’s show, TVNewser reported.

“This is a big moment for me, because it's really the next step for me and for the program," Gregory said while fighting back tears. "It has not been an easy transition, but I've always felt like I'm never alone in that.”

Gregory thanked the members of his academy: executive producer Betsy Fischer, NBC News President Steve Capus, NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker, and NBC News Washington Bureau Chief Mark Whittaker.

Carpenters, designers and electricians were not included.

The blognoscenti has had mixed emotions.

Nusayler at HuffPost: What a perfect, eloquent summary of how pathetic Gregory is. The first time he shows any genuine emotion, any passion, it's over what? Some cheesy TV set you could get at Ikea for under a grand. Too rich.

PORK RIND (HuffPost): Give the guy a break. He is trying his best despite what clearly must be a terrible pressure. Not even Tim Russert was born a legend -- it took a lifetime of evolution. I actually find Gregory preferable to the alternatives (Mini Anderson Cooper, George Stepinapoopalos and others). Not much preferable, but still...

Skeptical Cicada (HuffPost): He should be choked up for having destroyed MTP. Hint: The problem isn't the set, David.

We’ll see how this translates into viewers — and, for that matter, whether the other jabber-on-Sunday specialists will follow suit. But if nothing else, this brand new mise-en-scène for the medium’s longest-distance runner means this is Gregory’s MTP. The last, most visible manifestations of the Russert-era MTP are gone now; it’s on Gregory to clearly put his stamp on the program, to make it a Sunday-morning destination on the basis of more than reflex and habit. To make it his own.

The big guy in the picture on the shelf will be watching.

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Michael E. Ross is the editor of Culcha.

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Conan, in joy and pain

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Sometimes, it’s hard to do funny, even when it’s your livelihood. In a revealing interview with CBS’ Steve Kroft on “60 Minutes,” a subdued Conan O’Brien talks about his career, life and moving on in the wake of the Jay Leno episode. Clearly, sometimes, funny isn’t funny at all.

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Pearl Jam rocks New Orleans > In Music

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'Fences' hailed
on Broadway

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In its first revival since it first conquered Broadway in 1987, August Wilson’s “Fences” is on the New York stage, with Denzel Washington and Viola Davis in the lead roles. For Ben Brantley of The New York Times, it still really works.
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In San Francisco, Paul Reidinger reviews Michael Mina’s RN74 > In Feast

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