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The Traveling Wilburys - The Traveling Wilburys
When David Crosby of The Byrds, Stephen Stills of Buffalo Springfield and Graham Nash of The Hollies came together in 1968 to form Crosby, Stills and Nash, the concept of the "supergroup" was born. This is not to say that Crosby, Stills and Nash was the first supergroup, but the idea of singularly successful musicians joining forces to create a group that is, well, "super" began with them. The union of Eric Clapton (The Yardbirds), Ginger Baker (Graham Bond Organisation), and Jack Bruce (Manfred Mann) two years earlier could be considered the world's first real supergroup. The name supergroup is derived from the 1968 album
Super Session, a collaboration by Stephen Stills, Al Kooper (Blood, Sweat and Tears) and Mike Bloomfield (Bob Dylan's guitarist on Highway 61 Revisited).
For the last 40 years, supergroups have emerged in all forms of music, and deliver to the music fan the actualization of every music lover's dream—"what would it sound like if one of my favorite artists played with another one of my favorite artists?" For jazz fans this actualization may have occurred when Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter and Joe Zawinul (Weather Report), Chick Corea (Return To Forever), John McLaughlin (Mahavishnu Orchestra), Herbie Hancock, and Michael Brecker (Brecker Brothers) teamed up in 1971 to form Weather Report. For opera lovers, the moment probably came in 1990 when Plácido Domingo, José Carreras and Luciano Pavarotti formed the Three Tenors. For country fans, surely it was in '85 when Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson recorded the first of three albums as The Highwaymen. And for grunge fans, no doubt, it was when Pearl Jam and Eddie Vedder merged to form Temple of the Dog in 1990.
But the most super of the supergroups was the Traveling Wilburys, formed in 1988 by Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, George Harrison, Roy Orbison and Jeff Lynne (ELO). Why are they the most super? Well, of all supergroups, the five members have more records sold with previous projects (if the Beatles can be considered a "project") than any other supergroup. When the group released Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1 in '88, both Petty, who had released Southern Accents three years prior with the Heartbreakers, and Harrison who had released Cloud Nine the year before were two of the biggest solo stars on the planet. Add an ailing Roy Orbison, Rolling Stone's 37th greatest artist of all time; Dylan, perhaps the most influential American singer ever, and Lynne, whose band recorded 15 Top-20 songs on the US Billboard Charts, and you have yourself a supergroup.
Orbison suffered a fatal heart attack two months after the release of the Wilburys Vol. 1 and so the band waited two years to release their second and final album Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3. Why was their second disc called Vol. 3? No one can be sure. Perhaps because the band was composed of some of rock music's finest jokers. The name "Wilbury" began as a private joke between Harrison and Lynne to describe a song that wasn't good enough to make it onto an album—as in "we'll bury this song." Also, Petty's breakthrough solo album Full Moon Fever (1989) that features all the Wilburys except Dylan was somewhat like a second disc for the group.
Mysteriously both Wilburys' discs, which each sold over a million copies, went out of print for nearly a decade. Tuesday, the two discs by the Traveling Wilburys will be released together with a DVD of live concert footage and bonus tracks. The retrospective of the Wilburys comes nearly 20 years after Roy Orbison and Tom Petty met up at Bob Dylan's studio to record a B-side to a George Harrison single. What emerged was "Handle With Care," the group's biggest hit and the last single of Roy Orbison's revered career. What followed was two albums worth of fun folk-rock that helped define all that a supergroup can be.
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Various Artists - Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur  Here's a CD that definitely won't be released in China. The longest title of any album to be included in these here reviews,
Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur, is a double disc of John Lennon covers sung by the most poppy of today's pop stars. And of course, Yoko signed off on the project. Artists include R.E.M., U2, The Flaming Lips, Christina Aguilera, Aerosmith and Lenny Kravitz (or is it just "Lenny" these days). The only covers that pique my interest are Avril Lavigne doing "Imagine," Green Day's "Working Class Hero" and Orthodox Reggae Jew Matisyahu singing "Watching the Wheels." All proceeds from the album go to Amnesty's Darfur campaign.
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Queens of the Stone Age - Era Vulgaris  The Palm Desert-based hard rock quintet puts out their fifth studio release this week.
Era Vulgaris, or for those of us who opted not to take Latin in high school, "common era," is the loudest Queens of the Stone Age disc to date. And Queens of the Stone Age were pretty loud to begin with. Strokes front man Julian Casablancas joins Joshua Homme on "Sick, Sick, Sick." In an interview with Pitchfork, Homme said this of the album's title, "It sounds like 'the Vulgar Era,' which I like, because that sounds like something that I would like to be part of...I mean I think we're in it, and I'm stoked." Guys from Cali are always "stoked" about something.
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DMX - The Definition of X: Pick of the Litter  I'm going to write this like a DMX song. Have you been wondering where yo dog's at? WHAT! Well, other than being in and out of court almost non-stop the last 5 years, the rapper who put Yonkers, New York on the map has been putting together a greatest hits album. Yes, a greatest hits album. WHAT! His first 5 five albums debuted at the top of the Billboard charts so compiling the greatest hits, or as he says, "the pick of the litter," should be pretty easy. Pretty much every DMX track is about one of two things: how fearless his crew the Ruff Ryders are, or about how other rappers are bitches. WHAT! All in all, this disc is like taking a stroll through a park full of crack/cocaine, motorcycles and dogs barking really loud. |
If my name were John Jackson, I too would probably take a name like "Fabolous" or "Miracolous" or maybe even "Ridicolous." The Brooklyn-born MC was supposed to drop
From Nothin' to Somethin' in December but the release date got pushed back after Fab was shot in the leg last October in Manhattan. The new album features guest vocals from Jay-Z, Akon, Rihanna and Ne-Yo and as any good rap album has, the requisite track produced by Timbaland. The essence of ghetto-fabulous hip-hop, Fabolous' fourth is one of the most heavily anticipated rap albums of 2007.
Who won the George Benson Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2007 Canadian Smooth Jazz Awards? It's funny you should ask. The same poop-jazz, I mean POP-jazz pioneers that released their 24th studio album this week. The Buffalo, New York group has toured pretty much non-stop since the early 70s and has sold over 10 million records, making them one of the highest grossing American jazz groups of all time. Which isn't really saying much. If you'd like to check out Spyro Gyra's music, consult a stoner dad's record collection or the radio station in your town with the word "smooth" in its name.
-David
Flumenbaum
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