There’s a lot to like about Chimes of Freedom – the Amnesty International benefit album with more than 70 covers of Bob Dylan songs. Its sprawl means that artists have to reach deep into his catalog, so Adele’s version of “Make You Feel My Love” is fresh because she reinvents it as a soulful piano ballad, while the Gaslight Anthem’s version of “Changing of the Guards” sounds equally new because I haven’t heard Street-Legal in 30 years. The talent lineup ranges from expected (Costello, Steve Earle, Patti Smith, Joan Baez) to intriguing (Raphael Saadiq, Sugarland, Queens of the Stone Age, K’naan) to stunt casting (Miley Cyrus, Ke$ha). Neither of the oddities crash, or not in the way you might expect. Cyrus handles “You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go” just fine – not special, but a number of more respected artists turn in less engaging efforts. Ke$ha sings “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” accompanied only by distant feedback and a bordering-on-subterranean cello. Others have written that her performance sounds like a high school drama class performance, but when you hear her sniff her snotty nose, she sounds more like someone at the end of a three-day party whose crashing in every way. It’s hard to hear but hard to skip, and its an act of kindness to Dylan fans that they get a Kronos Quartet version of the song after Ke$ha’s to divert attention for real or acted breakdown just behind.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Chimes of Freedom suffers from its concept because there’s nothing new about a collection of Dylan covers. In 2002, Uncut pulled together two discs’ worth, and the I’m Not There soundtrack employed an equally star-studded lineup. Artists have been living off his words for decades now, and the best versions revealed something new in the song or the artists who covered them. Here, the artists often perform as fans and treat the songs a little too respectful. Bob’s not this reverent when he plays his own songs, and while I enjoy the enthusiasm with which Brett Dennen steps into Bob’s shoes for “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere,” I’d rather have something as ingenious as Howard Tate’s R&B version of “Girl from the North Country” or as fragile as Yo La Tengo’s “I Threw it All Away.” I keep waiting through Chimes of Freedom for someone to try to steal a song from Dylan the way Lou Reed made “Foot of Pride” his, but I settle for My Chemical Romance’s punkeroo “Desolation Row” and K’naan’s “With God on Our Side,” which sets the curdled lyrics next to the sweeping, uplifting music that echoes the sentiments of those whose belief in their own rightness Dylan mocks.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The respect the players show for Dylan means they play with great earnestness, which is not the same thing as Bob keeping a straight face.

Click here to view the embedded video.

What halftime show was music industry critic Bob Lefsetz watching?  For those who wanted to see guys stand there and churn away on guitars, there wasn’t much there for you, but it was so relentlessly over the top that it was hard not to be entertained. Gladiators? Check. Thor’s helmet? Check. Tightrope b-boy? Check. 53-year-old push-up? Check. Cheerleading with Nicki Minaj and M.I.A.? Check. Cee Lo Green and a choir? Check. World Peace? All in fewer than 14 minutes.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In his largely mean-spirited commentary on Twitter, Piers Morgan wrote, “But at least I’ve found that I have one common ground with Madonna: neither of us have sung live at the Super Bowl.” But her set was also a great summary of Madonna’s art in a way that most Super Bowl spectacles aren’t. The Who seemed adrift on the giant video screen/stage while Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers refused the moment and just stood there. Madonna embraced the spectacle to add levels of nuttiness; “World peace” as a punctuation mark made me laugh out loud.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Lefsetz uses Prince’s great halftime show in the rain as a measuring stick that, admittedly, few will live up to, but then he writes, “Sure, everyone still likes to party, but you got no impression that Madonna wanted you up on stage, celebrating with her. If anything, you felt if you ran up, you’d get kicked off.” Did he think Prince radiated “join me” when he walked away from the band for dramatic, very solo visual moment when he played the “Purple Rain” solo?

If you want to argue that there’s a shallow heart to Madonna’s art, I won’t argue. It’s always felt like her need to be famous outweighed any other values she might espouse, but maybe that made her uniquely suited to a task that left the Rolling Stones looking very old and very desperate. Lefsetz writes, “Great performances are about that little something extra, something indefinable that touches your core. And that’s what was missing here. There was no sense of majesty, no soulfulness, just a middle-aged woman trying too hard to impress.” The latter might be true, but touching your core, majesty and soulfulness is a narrow definition of greatness that almost automatically excludes many types of artists. For me, Madonna was a pop star embracing being a pop star in the most enthusiastic, imaginative way possible given the parameters posed by the Super Bowl. In fact, I suspect that show will likely be more satisfying than her upcoming concert tour, which comes to the New Orleans Arena Saturday, October 27 (tickets go on sale Monday, March 5 through Ticketmaster and LiveNation.com).

Click here to view the embedded video.

Phil Spector Presents the Philles Album Collection (Sony Legacy): Those who know Phil Spector-produced artists by their singles and hope to find pirate treasure in their album tracks will be disappointed by this seven-disc box set. There are some great finds here, most notably the electrifying version of Jackie DeShannon‘s “I Shook the World” by Bob B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans, but since the Crystals, the Ronettes and others in the Spector stable were singles artists, the albums were thin. Still, for me they’re thin in interesting ways. It’s hard to imagine I’ll ever listen again to Bob B. Soxx’s Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah, with Spectorized versions of “This Land is Your Land,” “The White Cliffs of Dover” and the title track, but the Crystals’ Twist Uptown is consistently entertaining, and the filler’s performed better than such average ideas merit. The disc I’ve listened to the most is Phil’s Flipsides, a collection of instrumental tracks that feature the Wrecking Crew at their go-go finest.

The Smiths Complete by the Smiths (Rhino): The Smiths are one of those bands that eluded me in their time. When their debut album came out in 1984, I liked harder music. After I heard “How Soon is Now,” I was frustrated and gave up when I couldn’t find anything else by them that sounded like that. Most subsequent efforts ended with the realization that I was probably too late to the dance with them, and that I was past the age when Morrissey’s powermope would speak to me. When the complete Smiths was released, I committed myself to making it through the studio albums but skipped the live Rank (no reason) and two greatest hits collections (redundant) and was glad I did. At first, I found Morrissey impossibly fey, but the barbs and kicks in his songs slowly emerged once I grew accustomed to his anxious loneliness as a baseline state of being. I still like the muscle in the BBC recordings on Hatful of Hollow, and even at the point when Johnny Marr and Morrissey were on the outs, the songs don’t show the stress. It’s hard to know who something like The Smiths Complete is for – Smith fans have it, and it’s hard recommend a band’s library as a starting point  - but they affected the music that followed them to such a degree that ’90s Britpop makes a lot more sense to me now.

Young Man with the Big Beat by Elvis Presley (Sony Legacy): This attractive box set packaged to resemble a multi-album vinyl set captures Elvis in 1956 when almost everything worked for him. That year, he cut “Blue Suede Shoes,” “Heartbreak Hotel,” “Love Me,” “Trying to Get to You,” ” Hound Dog,” “Don’t Be Cruel,”  ”Love Me Tender” and more, and you can hear the confidence in the tracks. He sings with the assurance that it’s all going to work because it has so far. The set includes a live show from Shreveport as well as songs from his one setback that year, a stint in Las Vegas that didn’t speak to the swells at the casinos. You don’t notice any timidity in his performance of “Long Tall Sally” in Vegas until you hear what he comes up with when the Shreveport audience egging him on. Box sets are the coffee table books of the music world, but The Young Man with the Big Beat is an attractive document of a rare moment in anyone’s life when everything was coming up Elvis.

Oil and Water by Steve Duin and Shannon Wheeler: This graphic novel tells the story of a group from Portland visiting Louisiana to “bear witness” to the BP oil disaster, and the strength of the story is Duin’s attention to important ironies. One of the Portlandites, for instance, speaks of learning “essential lessons in history and humility” while filling five panels with speechifying before artist Shannon Wheeler draws his words fading away. The short chapters read well and get the disaster down to human scale – how did it and the movement of people as a result of it affect those living here? As a whole, though, it’s not as effective because Duin’s characters aren’t that distinctive and Wheeler’s art doesn’t help. They seem stuck between “bearing witness” themselves and telling a story, leaving Oil and Water somewhere in between.

Dummy by RJ Wheaton: This book on Portishead’s debut album is one of the longer entries in Continuum Books’ 33 1/3 series, and it’s fascinating more because it feels like there are few of Wheaton’s musical interests that don’t find expression on Dummy than because the book itself is compelling. For me, the most engaging parts of the book are those that deal with the way hip-hop and DJ culture manifested themselves in England. Portishead’s Geoff Barrow was such a vinyl obsessive that the band would record parts, press them on vinyl, scuff and mar the vinyl, then sample that worn vinyl record to capture the texture and warmth of a needle in a groove. The book’s sprawl wore me out, and I suspect it still would have had I cared more about Portishead, but fans may well have a higher tolerance for exploring the worlds the album inhabits than I do.

The Stooges: Head On – A Journey Through the Michigan Underground by Brett Callwood: As a Stooges fan, I hoped for good things from Head On, but the book reads more like liner notes by a dedicated fan more than the product of a biographer. Callwood quotes extensively, dropping giant chunks of quotation in his narrative when they could and should be more judiciously edited and employed. As such, the story gets out, but it’s not crafted in a way that gives us a sense of the Stooges as people. You don’t feel any sense of tragedy or outrage or waste at the way the band’s career goes, but at least you know what happened. If anything, the long, loose quotations from the band members and their circle create a general air of slackness that might not be off base as you’re left wondering if the energy spent in the Stooges’ music was the only place their energy materialized.

After the Stooges’ break-up, Callwood glosses over Iggy’s career. That’s probably an omission as much due to not having contacts or cooperation from Iggy’s camp as it is the sense that it’s been covered, but it is nice to have a book that pays prolonged attention to the Asheton brothers and the rock ‘n’ roll Lego set that Detroit/Ann Arbor bands became as members of the Stooges and the MC5 formed new projects, played some gigs, then broke up and formed another one to make a few bucks. It’s all ripe stuff for a better book with more dramatic weight, but since we don’t have that book and may not now that Ron’s passed away, this may have to do.

Shrimp Stadium?

I’m having trouble comprehending this…what shall we then call the stadium: the Redfish Arena? Shrimp Stadium (as opposed to its big brother, the Mercedes Benz Whale Superdome)? Louisiana Seafood Arena? Somehow, Louisiana Seafood doesn’t particularly lend itself being a stadium name. According to news reports, they’re also discussing including Zatarain’s as a partner in naming.  At least Zat’s has a recognizable brand. Louisiana Seafood Arena? I don’t get it.

Wouldn’t the businesses who benefit from the promotion and marketing  of the Louisiana Seafood Marketing and Promotion organization be better served by some intensified marketing help for their particular businesses? More advertising in markets outside Louisiana?

I still have issues (see my post on the Mercedes Benz Superdome naming) with the massive money that’s thrown at sports teams. Obviously this is marketing for these entities, but can’t that money be put to better use?

I suppose that there are humongous perks that are associated with naming rights: your own fancy-schmancy box, deluxe treatment, tickets to give away, free booze, etc., etc. Those accrue to the “namers.” And of course, it will help keep the Hornets in New Orleans (I think this is the primary push). The money ponied up for naming rights isn’t really funneled back into the local community in any significant way that I can think of. For example, if the Superdome was still called the Louisiana Superdome, or the New Orleans Arena isn’t named the Louisiana Seafood Pavilion or some such, aren’t sports fans going to go to these events anyway? Can’t the Louisiana Seafood people use that money in a way that helps their constituency in a more valuable way, in advertising our seafood internationally? Working on finding better ways to distribute the product?  Reaching out to the scientific community to find ways to help make our seafood industry more sustainable, and thus more marketable for the long term?

Since I obviously know little about the real value of naming rights, can someone please educate me on the value from a marketing and advertising standpoint versus spending money promoting your brand through standard media? Who benefits the most from this?

On another branding idea: some years ago,  a young entrepreneur told me about a concept to market music regionally, and to create tours of sites, cities and towns in Louisiana and Mississippi to increase the brand of the musical art forms that were born in the south—blues and jazz.

The idea was a great one: when we combine our efforts, we all get stronger. Both Louisiana and Mississippi would have benefited from this idea.

Of course, it didn’t happen.

Now a new idea: a “visionary” entrepreneur from Leipers Fork, Tennessee and the Executive Director of the Americana Music Foundation want to create the “Americana Music Triangle” which is, for lack of better terminology, the “Bermuda Triangle” of the cradle of American music.  Drawn strictly, its anchors are New Orleans, Memphis and Nashville, and it comprises much of the state of Mississippi, Baton Rouge, and the Mississippi River side of Arkansas and the very tip-top northwestern part of Alabama.

The idea is to brand the Triangle as the cradle of American music and to market it to the world. I support this idea and think it could draw a lot more attention to this region as a music mecca. Of course, I feel that New Orleans is THE source of all music, but any idea that educates people on the value of our music—and provides a means to make the slice of the pie bigger for New Orleans and the rest of Louisiana—has got a lot of merit.

STRFKR – Reptilians by Polyvinyl Records

Such was the case Tuesday night at One Eyed Jacks, as a band took the stage in a slightly reconfigured lineup, founding member Ryan Bjornstad having recently departed, and slid through an energetic set of synth-aided, danceable indie pop. The band first gained notoriety in their native Portland for swapping instruments freely and occasionally utilizing two drummers, but the intervening years have seemingly ossified that alignment. The group remained in a static four-in-front, single-drummer configuration for the entirety of Tuesday’s show.

The best moments of Tuesday night were, much like the band’s catalogue, heavily reliant on that exceptional self-titled first record. “German Love,” and “Rawnald Gregory Erickson the Second,” are show stoppers in any setting; singular composites of pure euphoric dance and hazy, harmonic Beatles pop. The live touchstone that springs to mind is Cut Copy, which is indeed a high mark to hit, and STRFKR didn’t match that Australian outfit’s sheer, sweaty, crowd-pleasing sonic force (the only indie dance band that could’ve, LCD Soundsystem, is no longer among us) but it was a good showing nonetheless. The only real problem is the band’s lack for a full set’s worth of catchy singles. The band’s newer output lacks the simple, earwormy charm of those first songs—not necessarily a bad thing until it’s time to get a room full of people dancing. Reptilians, for all its charms, is more death-obsessed and less immediately arresting.

Still, it’s hard to argue with that moment when “Pop Song” or “Julius” really kick in, and the crowd reels while the pointillist light show dizzily whirls about. And if we can’t agree on indie-minded dance pop, what chance do any of us have?

Brittany Howard of the Alabama Shakes at One Eyed Jacks. Photo by Erika Goldring.

Even with an uncommonly early start time at One Eyed Jacks—9 p.m. for the headliner!—the Alabama Shakes packed the room to the point that those of us who arrived shortly before 9 p.m. bumped into an impenetrable wall of backs five or so feet inside the door. But the show was a reminder that soul is an attribute, not a genre. It’s a passion that singer Brittany Howard conveys, not an amp setting, chord progression or set of lyrical tropes. The great R&B records weren’t retro when they were made; they were contemporary music, and the Alabama Shakes make soulful rock ‘n’ roll that’s completely contemporary. From my spot at the back of the room, it was hard to break down song specifics, but only the slow songs left me cold (which could be a function of distance), and song after song had an element that supercharged the moment.

Just by luck, I ended up standing with Scott Bomar, bassist for Memphis R&B band the Bo-Keys, who thought they were “the least contrived band” he’s seen in a while.

Writer, musician and OffBeat contributor Ned Sublette recently sent an email commenting on Harry Belafonte’s autobiography, My Song, and its focus on Belafonte’s activism. Sublette writes:

For me, the book’s most compelling moment is Belafonte’s eyewitness account of the May 24, 1963 cocktail party arranged by James Baldwin for Attorney General Robert Kennedy to meet “some representative black voices.” It was thrown into turmoil by the young New Orleans CORE member and Freedom Rider Jerome Smith (now an elder in New Orleans, I had the privilege of interviewing him for The Year Before the Flood), who, inconveniently spoke truth to power.

As quoted by Belafonte (this is a selective excerpt; read the full account in the book, beginning on p. 267):

Finally the young man said, “I don’t know what I’m doing here, listening to all this cocktail-party patter. What you’re asking us young black people to do is pick up guns against people in Asia while you have continued to deny us our rights here.” . . .

Bobby was stunned. The one thing he took for granted was that all Americans would be patriotic if confronted by a common enemy.

Jerome Smith

Trying to ease past the awkward moment, James Baldwin asked Jerome how he felt about picking up a gun to fight for America if it actually declared war. “Never!” Jerome cried. “These are poor people who did nothing to us. . . . “

“You will not fight for your country?” Bobby retorted. “How can you say that?”

Back and forth went the tense exchange, until Jerome said that being in this living room with Kennedy made him want to vomit. . . .

An account of the meeting was leaked to the New York Times, where a story ran the next day, and I’d barely finished the New York Times story the next morning when Martin called. He wanted every detail of the evening with Bobby. “Disaster,” I said with a sigh. But when I relayed Jerome Smith’s fighting words, Martin had a different view. “Maybe it’s just what Bobby needed to hear,” he said…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Shorty is nominated for numerous Best of the Beat awards this year including Artist of the Year and Album of the Year. Voting closes Friday, so time to vote is running out. Tickets to the Best of the Beat at Generations Hall are on sale now for $25 until January 16, when the price goes up to $30. This year’s show features lifetime achievement honoree George Porter, Jr. and an expanded Runnin’ Pardners, the Soul Rebels, Glen David Andrews, GIVERS, Lost Bayou Ramblers, Big Freedia and Aurora Nealand and the Royal Roses.