Steve Winwood
Nine Lives

The key to understanding Steve Winwood's Nine Lives, is seeing his musical progression from his days in the bands Traffic and Blind Faith, to his 2003 album, About Time. Time was at once, a return to form and new musical direction for Winwood. After making himself an '80s pop/rock icon, his solo career hit rock bottom with the truly wretched 1997 album, Junction Seven. Even Winwood himself knew how bad it was and knew he had to change his approach to music. It took six years, but About Time was a throw back to the days of Traffic's progressive/psychedelic/jazz hybrid sound. Winwood swapped in his keyboards for a Hammond Organ and took in a band of amazing session musicians; including Jose Pires de Almeida Neto on guitar and Richard Bailey and Karl Vanden Bossche on percussion. Together, they churned out an album that found itself a bit too free-wielding to be considered rock, but too structured to be jazz. Five years have passed since then and Winwood has delivered his ninth studio album, Nine Lives, which functions as a sequel to the record prior.

The aforementioned musicians all return here, with Bailey moving to a full drum kit, Bossche handling the percussion, and Paul Booth being added to the line-up to contribute saxophone and flute parts. Though the cast is virtually the same, one of the key differences between Time and Lives is that Winwood has not resigned himself solely to playing the organ and singing. The lead-off track, "I'm Not Drowning" has Winwood playing all the instruments...which basically amounts to guitar and some mild percussion. Though few would classify him as a guitarist, Winwood actually creates a catchy, if not mild melody that really moves the song through its mid-tempo pacing. A few tracks later he does a complete turnabout and on "Dirty City" unleashes a raw, gritty, almost snarling lick that punctuates his vivid lyrics. Alone, this song would be great, but it's rendered excellent by the inclusion of Eric Clapton. The legendary guitarist provides a guitar solo for the song's extended outro and it is without exaggeration, quite possibly the best thing Clapton has recorded since his 1989 album Journeyman.

These stand-out tracks aside, the rest of the album has a few problems that prevent it from being as good as it could be, the first involving Winwood's voice. Maybe it's the arrangements of the songs and wanting the instruments to speak for themselves, but the vocals seldom seem to factor into the music, in many cases, they're more like an afterthought. Or it could easily be that Winwood has lost a step over the years and consciously decided to tone down his voice. Either way it's a shame since lyrically, this is the strongest set Winwood has put together since Back In The High Life. "Fly" and "Sometimes We Do Forget" are majestically poetic lyrics, riding the music behind them to great heights.

The second problem is related in that these wonderful lyrics are sometimes lost to sprawling songs that don't offer enough gusto to hold interest. When compared to About Time, the performances on Nine Lives seem restrained. Even without listening to the previous record the lack of substance is detectable. There's room for soloing, time signature changes, and vocalizing that isn't really taken. So, even though everything is performed adequately, there's a great deal of untapped potential that never gets released.

Overall, Nine Lives would be best enjoyed by those who appreciated Winwood's earlier work with Traffic and Blind Faith. Anyone looking for a continuation of his '80s albums might derive some enjoyment out of "I'm Not Drowning" or "Dirty City", but little more than that. At the very least, Winwood has found a niche that is uniquely his, he just needs time to perfect his output.



Mark Knopfler & Emmylou Harris
All The Road Running

After the disappointment that was Knopfler’s last solo outing, Shangri-La, he comes back by finally releasing a long-term project he had been working on with country star, Emmylou Harris. Despite her age, Harris still has a powerful and beautiful voice that adds a touch of magic to each of the tracks here. The backing band is Knopfler’s tried and true solo team which means that all of you diehard Guy Fletcher fans will be elated to know that he’s still there with Mark, playing anything with keys attached to it. As may be expected from a collaboration between Knopfler and Harris, this album is rooted in country, but stretches the genre to bring in elements of the laid-back rock style that both artists are capable of.

The finest display of her and Knopfler utilizing these two genres effectively is “This Is Us”. Knopfler’s guitar playing effectively fills out the backing music along with Chad Cromwell’s drums and Guy Fletcher’s pulsing keyboards and gentle piano. Centerstage on this song, and the album in general, belongs to the voices of Knopfler and Harris. Harris's beautiful voice encourages Knopfler to reach for notes and expand on his usual style of delivery. The results are consistently gorgeous like on the opening track, “Beachcombing”. There are plenty of songs that “rock out” in a way that only these two could do. “Red Staggerwing”, “Right Now”, and “Belle Starr” are all foot-tapping fun and display a sense of enjoyment that Knopfler hasn’t shown in years. This energy even extends to the country ballads they recorded together, the best examples being “Love and Happiness” and the title track.

The musical arrangements are stunningly sweet, but are sold by Harris’s soaring voice and Knopfler’s gritty drawl. They really are prefect together. Where the album does falter, and it’s not by much, it’s just that the songwriting is a bit too country for an album that has Knopfler's name attached to it. Knopfler is no stranger to American country music, using it effectively in his band Dire Straits and recording a Grammy winning album, Neck & Neck with legendary guitarist, Chet Atkins. But even while Knopfler dabbled in the genre, his lyrics were still expansive, fresh, and interesting. Though they are often evoking of beauty and love throughout this collection, it doesn’t sound quite like Knopfler. This same criticism extends to his guitar playing. If you'd never heard Knopfler play before, you would not believe him to be a guitar virtuoso from his playing here. But this could also be taken as a point of praise to the extent that he’s able to change his style to fit perfectly into country music, cropping his solos down and adjusting his lyrical themes. Either way, this remains a strong country album, accessible to music fans in general.



Nils Lofgren
The Loner: Nils Sings Neil

The Loner: Nils Sings Neil is a fascinating name for a Nils Lofgren album, even if it wasn't intended to be. Nils broke into the music industry when Neil Young invited him to play piano on the iconic track, "Southern Man" from the 1970 album After The Gold Rush. Since then, Nils has been involved in a great many projects, and could be called a great number of things; bandleader, sideman, singer, songwriter, guitarist, pianist, accordionist, but he could never be called a "loner". Even throughout his solo career, Lofgren has had the benefit of being backed by wonderful session musicians (i.e. drummer Andy Newmark) and talented friends (Young, Ringo, etc.).

Nils's last album, 2006's Sacred Weapon was a return to straight-ahead rock & roll after the departure into experimental harp playing that was 2001's Breakaway Angel. Bucking these styles altogether, Nils goes for a solo, acoustic, cover album with him playing the songs of Neil Young, arranged for piano or acoustic guitar. For the first time, Nils is entirely on his own. It's just him with one instrument, and the songs of his long time friend and mentor.

Interestingly enough, Nils doesn't opt to cover the bigger songs from Young's catalog such as, "Heart Of Gold", "Old Man", etc. Instead, Lofgren digs deep into the expansive songbook and comes back up with some beautiful reinterpretations. A prime example is "Wonderin'", a song Young originally featured on his very odd doo-wop album, Everybody's Rockin'. While Young's version, complete with back-up singers and comically uninspired vocals, serves at best as a novelty; Nils strips away the gimmick and with nothing but his piano and voice, reveals the beautiful lyric underneath.

Actually, the album as a whole can be best described as beautiful. Nils manages to even turn "Like A Hurricane" into a poignant statement of love's labors. The drawback to this is that the album is not an exciting affair. The first 30 seconds of "World On A String" showcases some impressive guitar playing from Lofgren, hearkening back to his amazing Acoustic Live recording. Other than that, the title track is the only song of the fifteen to have some grit to it, with Nils's voice taking on a growl and his strumming picking up in force and intensity.

Few of the songs could be considered improvements over the originals, but none of them are bad covers. Nils has worked with and around Neil for almost four decades, he has too much respect for Young to take any risks with songs that are so cherished. The Loner: Nils Sings Neil is a loving tribute from a friend to a friend. The appreciation Nils has for his mentor and contemporary is shown in everything from the compelling song selection, to their beautifully sparse arrangements. The Loner may be remembered more for being a testament to Young's timeless songwriting than Lofgren's talents as a musician, but then again, that may be exactly what was intended.