Send "Willie Nelson " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pastemagazine |
 Among the many differences between Willie Nelson and Jakob Dylan, there’s the matter of frequency: The silver-braided Nelson releases new records two or three times a year, like clockwork, while the younger Dylan has kept a more measured pace since his band The Wallflowers wilted from its late-’90s peak. Nonetheless, both performers tapped T Bone Burnett to be the sonic architect of their latest efforts, each album playing with its own idea of country music and showcasing two different sides of the Oscar-winning producer.Nelson’s Country Music thumps to life with the unfussy airs of a pickin’ parlor throwdown. This batch of vintage tunes—drawn from the American canon of country, blues and gospel as defined by seminal types like Ernest Tubb and Bob Wills—is delivered with his soulful, weathered authority. His trick is to seem nonchalant, but the sessions themselves were anything but offhand. Nelson’s tenure at the powerhouse Americana label Lost Highway yielded nearly 20 new albums, but none as distinguished as Teatro, his 1998 Island Records collaboration with ambient wizard Daniel Lanois. With Country Music signalling his arrival at a new label (Rounder) and a return to the studios of a city (Nashville) he’d once abandoned, Nelson decided to repeat a winning approach. Just like he did with Lanois, for Country Music he handed the keys to a studio whiz. The songs and sidemen (Ronnie McCoury, Buddy Miller) were picked with an ear to Grand Ole Opry authenticity, akin to Burnett’s work on the Coen Brothers’ O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack. The natural, gloss-free sound clears the way for Willie’s voice, as cozy as an old pair of slippers; the 77-year-old singer’s persona is inseparable from any song he sings, even when he’s never sung it before and even when it’s cruise-ship reggae. Burnett simply picks a setting, introduces some variables—like the traditional “Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down,” previously covered by Uncle Tupelo and Medeski, Martin and Wood—and steps out of the way....full text |
| Newmusicreviews |
| LOS ANGELES, Jan. 28 /PRNewswire/ — Jakob Dylan will release his sophomore solo album, Women and Country, on Columbia Records on April 6th, 2010. Soulful yet striking and ripe with sublime beauty, Women and Country is the follow up to the artist’s 2008 critically acclaimed debut, Seeing Things. This new collection finds him reuniting with acclaimed Grammy and Golden Globe winning producer T Bone Burnett (Robert Plant, Alison Krauss, Crazy Heart), who produced the Wallflowers’ 1996 breakthrough album Bringing Down the Horse. On the release, Jakob is also joined by Neko Case and Kelly Hogan, who provide back-up vocals to 8 of the album’s 11 tracks. “I’m so happy to be collaborating with Jakob at this exciting and vital time in his life as an artist,” said T Bone Burnett. “I think this new album is an important work from a great musician.” Recorded in Los Angeles, CA, Women and Country is the full realization of a journey Jakob Dylan began on his previous solo release Seeing Things, which hearkens back to the timeless artistry of American roots music and country blues masters. Seeing Things garnered significant critical praise for Dylan including The Los Angeles Times who called him “a gifted storyteller” and USA Today who said the release was “an evocative acoustic album that reveals the poetic grace of his lyrics and the maturity and moving power of his voice.” On Women and Country Jakob reaches new majestic heights with his voice and song-writing that are as distinct as. This, coupled with T Bone Burnett’s haunting production and the stirringly rich vocals by Neko Case and Kelly Hogan, creates a powerful and melancholic experience for the listener....full text |
| Thehurstreview |
| It’s been so long since Willie Nelson recorded a straight-ahead, concept-free recording of simple country songs that the title of 2010’s Country Music is less an understated irony, more a necessary qualifier– but also a tell-tale sign that this isn’t the loose, amiable Willie of old, but a Willie who continues to approach each album as a sort of formal exercise, which is basically what Country Music is. He’s done reggae, he’s done blues, he’s done a Cindy Walker tribute and a set of American standards, and now he makes an album of traditional country music– an album that is not only confined to a particular style, but shaped sonically by a specific collaborator, in this case T-Bone Burnett, who is truly the album’s chief architect, Willie simply his easy-going, ever-agreeable mouthpiece. The upside to this set of country standards is that this is the kind of music Willie grew up with and can play in his sleep, and his natural ease here is only enhanced by the fact that he has, of late, been game for recording with basically anybody, so he sounds perfectly comfortable in T-Bone’s vintage country set-pieces. And make no mistake: The goal of this album is to emulate the sound of vintage country music through and through, something that separates it from the more cinematic soundscapes of T-Bone’s recent work with Jakob Dylan; here, it’s all about the organic interplay between the musicians– among them Jim Lauderdale and Buddy Miller– on traditional string instruments, a soung that’s steeped in classic country music with heavy doses of bluegrass, as well as hints here and there of honky-tonk....full text |
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