New and noteworthy

Poet of Motel 6

Kinky Friedman

Six years ago, in a review of Resurrection, I wrote that Kinky Friedman had made “uniquely American folk art out of being politically correct before being politically incorrect was cool,” which makes no sense. I meant “politically incorrect” both times, and I thank readers for not piling on. Political incorrectness plays no role this time. What does is Friedman’s sense that, due to Parkinson’s, his end was drawing nigh. (He died last June.) So, preparing to country-shuffle off his mortal coil, he made each word count, whether lionizing his rescue dogs, eulogizing his buddy Billy Joe Shaver, or telling the bittersweet saga of a rodeo clown with whom he had as much in common as Melville had with Bartleby the scrivener.

Straight From the Heart

Bill Medley

You might expect this album, released as it was to coincide with Medley’s farewell Righteous Brothers tour, to contain at least a little blue-eyed soul. One glance at the track list, however, reveals that, except for “Let It Be Me,” these songs—originally popularized by the likes of Johnny Cash, George Jones, Ferlin Husky, Ray Charles, Don Williams, and Garth Brooks—hail from the country canon. More important, they unfold slowly, allowing Medley to bring his rich baritone voice to bear on, and in so doing to enrich, the mysteries between the lines.

Back to My Roots

Candi Staton

Like the woman at the well, Candi Staton has had five husbands. (She’s currently on No. 6.) So it’s easy to hear “I Missed the Target Again,” the self-composed opening cut of her latest gospel album, as a judgment-deflecting confession. The truth, of course, is that everyone misses the target again (and again). So, whatever her motives, Staton has given Christians a tough, soulful anthem capable of keeping anyone who sings it and means it humble. The other 11 songs, the Rolling Stones’ “Shine a Light” among them, maintain the tone.

The Life I Got: To My Most Beloved

Gino Vannelli

Johnny Mathis recently announced his retirement, leaving fans of smooth-as-silk crooning feeling stranded. They needn’t. If ever a singer could pass for Mathis’ vocal heir apparent, it’s Gino Vannelli. He composed this album as his wife was dying of cancer, and the best songs do indeed have a coming-to-grips quality. They include declarations of love, a prayer (“Across the Dark Night”), and a resolution to follow through on its answer (“The Life I Got”). The fly in the ointment? “It’s All Good Mama,” which tries to out-“Lola” the Kinks.

Gino Vannelli Ginov.com

Encore

A year before his breakthrough in 1978 with the album Brother to Brother, Gino Vannelli released A Pauper in Paradise, his fifth album in five years for A&M Records and his second in a row to feature a lengthy suite on Side 2. When the album didn’t even go gold in the singer’s native Canada, A&M told Vannelli to knock off the pretensions and to focus on scoring a hit. So he did. And the result was the un-suitened Brother to Brother and its lead single “I Just Wanna Stop,” the biggest hit of Vannelli’s career.

A Pauper in Paradise, however, had its pluses. The synthesizers, for instance, of Bill Meyers and Gino’s brother Joe sounded as plush and as exotic as the pillows in a sultan’s harem. For any other singer of the time, the effect would’ve been overwhelming if not comical. But for Vannelli, such luxurious backing suited his romantic, jazz-inflected R&B and his soaring voice perfectly. Most impressive of all (fans of prog rock and of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, take note), the suite on Side 2 wasn’t bad. —A.O.